Expectations
by Amethyst-Violet
Summary: Set after MR4. Max follows the coordinates to continue her mission. FAX all the way though. The voice expects her to save the world. The director expects her to fail. Can she save the world? Can the flock be free finally? Surprises in the plot!
1. It Begins

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 1**

**Hey! I'm back! And this time with a full story instead of little oneshots. Well I got this idea for this fanfic from The City of Ember, which is another book that I read for school. I didn't take the whole story, I just took my idea from that book. But it will still be ALL MR characters and I won't add characters from other books, from my imagination maybe. Well I hope you enjoy. Oh and I think I'll update twice a week… maybe more if I feel up to it. Reviews and PM's help me write though ;) hint hint**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, James Patterson is the man who came up with this great idea. This is fanfiction, and something that I came up with using Patterson's books.**

**Bold Me**

Normal Normal story

_Italics Voice_

"Nudge honey please go to bed already, I know you're excited we aren't going to that school… but your talking is giving me a headache." I rubbed my hands over my eyes and tried to tune Nudge out. I looked around the room and saw Total trying to talk to Akila, who has warmed up to him since the hurricane incident. Fang was pinching the bridge of his nose while reading something on his blog, Iggy and Gazzy were in a corner of the room with their backs turned to me, no doubt making bombs but I was too tired to even say something… and Angel was. Wait a second, where was Angel? That's when I heard the shower running in the bathroom and realized she was just in there. Some might call that paranoia but I call that my life. Moonlight streamed in through the window and onto the floor. I stared at it transfixed trying to figure out what I was going to do next.

Next thing I know Fang is standing in front of me waving his hand in my face "Earth to Max! Did you hear me? The rest of the flock just went to bed, come on you need to get some sleep too." I looked around and sure enough the flock was sprawled out on beds and across the floor.

"Oh sorry, I was just thinking," I told Fang before I stood up and walked towards the bathroom to go brush my teeth. I could just barely hear him mumble something under his breath before I left the room. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. My eye was still a little dark from when I got a black eye back in our last battle. Barely noticeable but still there. Angel was already recovered with our fast healing. Her bone healed itself before my black eye could even disappear completely. I guess the older we get the less "efficient" we become. Maybe this has something to do with our expiration dates… Or maybe all this stress is just starting to take it's toll on me.

I reached over and turned on the facet to wash my face and brush my teeth. My skin was pretty clear, no scratches anymore and I never did get acne. I guess that's another superhuman thing about us. I turned the water off and patted my face dry with a towel. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, held it and slowly exhaled. I have no idea what's going to happen now. This leader thing really can suck sometimes… but maybe my right hand man, my second in command could help me with that. It's times like these that I'm so happy that Fang came back and that we'll never split up again. I hated, HATED it when we were apart. But I'm not going to admit that.

When I walked back into the main room where we were all sleeping I saw that all the space was taken up except for an area just barely large enough for two people to sleep. Hmmm I guess I know what spot on the floor I'm getting tonight. Fang had already set up two pillows and some blankets on the floor. As soon as I exited the bathroom Fang walked right past me and into the bathroom without saying a word. Hmmm what's up with him? **(Hmm maybe Fang is PMSing lol) **I crawled in between the covers and plumped my pillow, closing my eyes. I heard the bathroom door open and close. I could barely hear Fang walk across the room, he was always quiet, like a shadow. I heard him lay down beside me and I laid there listening to his breathing.

I heard a slight rustle as he turned around, towards me I think, and his breath caught. I wanted to open my eyes and see what made him gasp but I thought it was better to just fake sleep. I made sure to keep my breathing even. I heard Fang start to breathe normally again and turn around his back just barely touching mind. I just listened to his breathing for a long time, until it slowed and I realized he was finally asleep. I then fell asleep to the sound of Fang breathing.

**I was going to keep writing, but I decided that I would just start a new chapter and get this posted to see what people think. Yup it's short, but I have never written a long chapter and I never will. I think my most was like 2000 words and that's it. I know it sounds sort of like my other story, but I actually have a plot planned. Though I don't know exactly how this will be. I'm going to follow an outline loosely. I like to add random stuff in and not just have it jam packed and rushed. Sooo tell me what you think**

**Much love **

**Amethyst-Violet**


	2. Plans

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 2**

**Hey, here's chapter two and yea I just realized that I'm awful when it comes to tenses in this chapter. I go from past to present, sorry about that. I went through and fixed some of it. But when I write I just do that naturally. Short chapter I know, but I'll update twice this week… or try to.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, James Patterson is the man who came up with this great idea. This is fanfiction, and something that I came up with using Patterson's books.**

I woke up in the morning and stretched my arms up feeling muscles relax and sighed. Hmm this was nice. A relaxing hot shower, a clean bed to sleep in; this friends is heaven. The angels stuff, I'm sure that's nice. But I'd settle for this, a hot shower, clean bed, and nice meal. Speaking of meals, I'm hungry. Hmm I wonder what Iggy can cook up.

After breakfast and while everyone was cleaning up I realized that I had no idea where we were even going. So voice where are we going? _Fly up to Michigan and then from there get on a plane to the tip of Canada, then to Greenland. Don't worry, I already have the tickets bought and paid for; you just have to go to the airport. And Angel can arrange something to do with Total and Akila. Once you're in Greenland you are going to meet up with Dr. Dwyer again. You'll then board a ship because you're going to the Lincoln Sea. _Oh wow you're making this easy for me huh. _You're there to do more for Global Warming. Just something more… well you'll see once you get there._

GLOBAL WARMING! Noooo that means cold and snow and COLD! I understand that helping stop Global Warming is important… but come on; can't I do that from somewhere warm? Like Hawaii?

Hmm I wonder what this is about. I hope that it doesn't have to do with studying ice or something, because that will just not work for me. Oh and I bet Fang is going to be excited to see his darling doctor again. I mean she is like seven years older than he is, that is just wrong.

Angel just raised her eyebrows at me and said "Jealous," the rest of the flock stopped whatever they were in the middle of and looked at us. I shot Angel a look and she automatically gave me this adorable look and I just couldn't stay angry with her. I have no idea how she does that really. Iggy and Gazzy then started to argue about who had brush the dogs' teeth. Nudge was doing Angel's hair. Akila was just sitting on the floor looking back and forth from Iggy to Gazzy. Fang and Total were in a corner of the room whispering, Total looked over at me and said something else to Fang. I don't even want to know at this point.

"Okay everyone; listen up because I'll tell you the plan." Iggy raised his eyebrow and said "The plan?" I just told him to shut up and told them about going to Greenland and how we are working on Global warming. Everyone except Fang and Akila made comments… and I did not look at him when I said we were meeting up with Dr. Wonderful. Doesn't this sound exciting?

**I'll try to bring some action into the next chapter. And maybe Fax later on. **


	3. Embarrassing Moments

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 3**

**Hey thanks for the reviews. Sorry about the short and slow updates but I'm lazy that way. And my head feels like it is about to explode or implode or something but oh well. Oh and I tried to fix some grammar issues I've been having. Any helpful comments are appreciated. Oh and to make up for the slow update I made this chapter a bit longer than my usual chapters.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, James Patterson is the man who came up with this great idea. This is fanfiction, and something that I came up with using Patterson's books.**

The sun felt so nice on my wings. I really do love the sun in case you didn't know. Flying is an amazing feeling. There is no word to describe what flying is like. It's relaxing, and tranquil while invigorating at the same time. Actually now that I think of it, there is a word to describe flying. As Nudge so quaintly puts it flying is just fantabuawesome. Nothing else can compare to flying. It's such a freeing experience.

I think that all the pain that we have gone through by being "experiments" is almost worth it, because we can fly. Almost. The closest thing to flying that I think most of you can do is swinging. Sure there are those little bungee jumping things… but that's more like falling to me… and falling isn't that much fun. Though diving is. Next time you are on swings, close your eyes take a deep breath and just quit thinking. Pretend like you're flying, with the wind through your hair. (Except when you're flying against the wind and your hair ends up in your mouth.) That's kind of what flying feels like. Except you know, feeling your wings powerfully pump and keep you aloft is missing but oh well.

Anyways now after my little inner monologue is finished I should probably fill you in on what's going on huh? That might help. Well we left our hotel about two days ago and are now near Michigan. And from Michigan we are getting on a plane. Nothing really interesting has happened yet and I don't feel like boring you with the details. But I will say that Gazzy can never again have any spicy food, or we might not even need ITEX to kill us. "Hey since it's almost sundown I think we should find a clearing and camp out tonight." It's time to take charge again. I angled my wings down and we settled down in a clearing for the night. Iggy cooked over a fire and I must say it was quite good. Nothing can beat hotdogs over an open flame.

Nudge said "Hey I have an idea. Why don't we make smores? I bought chocolate, gram crackers, and marshmallows today when we stopped by a little store. Oh and how about we play a game!"

Iggy piped up "Fine as long as it's not truth or dare. That game is played way too many times. And it's such a chick game."

"You sexist pig! You can't use the word chick in Max's presence!" Angel told Iggy, and we all cracked up laughing. I taught her well huh. I also didn't realize that Angel knew words like presence until now. That is one smart cookie for sure.

"How about would you rather?" Gazzy contributed. Then of course he let one rip and Akila gave him a look and went to sit by Fang. So that is how we began to play would you rather.

Iggy started with, "Nudge would you rather not talk for a whole week or dye your hair pink?"

"Dye my hair pink completely or just highlights?"

"Completely," Iggy answered.

"Dye my hair pink. Okay my turn. Gasman would you rather eat Total or gnaw off your own arm while listening to country music?"

Total got an indignant look on his face and looked at Nudge as if he didn't even know who she was anymore. "Why eat me? When I'm so adorable? You couldn't live without me!!" Total huffed.

"I'm sorry to say this Total… but I would rather eat you. But I promise I will try not to… eat you. Besides I don't like country music, I also need my arm to make bombs. Sorry Total."

More laughing at that. So we played the game for a while and there were just silly fun questions until… Angel asked me "Max would you rather kiss Fang or that guy you went out on a date with in Virginia? Remember you have to answer truthfully." Dead silence at that question.

Adrenaline started to pump through my veins, why was Angel doing this to me? Angel then started to giggle and said out loud "She would rather kiss Fang than that Sam guy." I felt my face start to heat up and I knew I was blushing. Oh god how embarrassing. I couldn't even look up at Fang, to see how he reacted to that. Oh curse this stupid blushing! I felt my face heat up even more. That's when Gazzy told Iggy how red I was and Iggy started to laugh and laugh AND LAUGH! Oh god kill me now, please! Right now I was probably as red as a tomato.

"Okay ha, ha, everyone get ready for bed, I'll take first watch." I saw Total curl up to Akila and silently laughed since I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. Oh well I still think it's cute. Angel and Nudge grabbed some blankets and went to sleep under a tree. Iggy and Gazzy both settled down in branches in the tree above Angel and Nudge.

I settled down by the fire to take first watch. I looked around to see where Fang was… but I didn't see him. Usually I would freak out about a flock member being missing but Fang was probably just blending in with his surroundings. I put some more wood on the fire and listened intently for signs of anyone being around us. You can't be too careful when you have a whole corporation of people trying to kill you.

That's when some movement caught my eye and I automatically stood up and did a roundhouse kick within seconds, someone caught my leg and I saw that it was just Fang. "You really need to stop kicking me one of these days." Fang joked. I lowered my leg and sat back down. I still couldn't look at him. I was still mortified of what Angel told everyone earlier.

Fang sat down by me and leaned back, his arms supporting him. We just sat there in silence for a while… I'm guessing about half an hour. "Fang you're going to have to get up for your own watch in a couple of hours. You aren't superman, you do need sleep."

Fang gave me a funny look and I heard Angel giggle inside my head and say, "He's your superman Max." I inwardly glared at her and she giggled again, "Okay, okay I'm going to sleep. "Goodnight," and more giggling. You know sometimes having a mind reader in the flock is a good thing, right now it's not.

Fang just laughed and I realized Angel was talking to him. Oh god will this ever end? Fang got up and brushed himself off. He leaned over me, close to my ear and my heart starting beating double it's usual pace, and that's pretty fast in the first place. "I would rather kiss you than that girl in Virginia too," Fang muttered and flew up to sleep on a branch by Iggy and Gasman. That sure gave me something to think about during my watch.

The next morning I woke up to someone licking my hand. Can you say eww? I opened my eyes and closed them again against the glare of the sun. After a few seconds I opened them again to see Akila looking down at me. She then pointed with her nose towards my flock eating breakfast. Couldn't anyone have made sure that I woke up to eat? No of course not.

I sat down by Angel and grabbed a granola bar. Which I must say is much better than bird seed. I of course started chuckling at that and my flock looked at me like I was crazy. I usually don't just start laughing for no reason. I explained, "Remember how when we were in Florida and Gozen brought us bird seed."

The entire flock began to laugh at that, even Fang. The whole world just seems to brighten when he smiles. Angled then piped up with an, "AWWWWWWWWWWW!"

"Angel what did I say about reading people's minds?" Angel apologized then, but we both knew that she was still going to read our minds. I then saw Fang look at me funny and I knew Angel told him what I was thinking about his smile. Oh crap she is so dead.

Akila then started to growl. "Incoming," Total informed us. Oh crap, crap, double crap.

"Everyone grab your packs, we have visitors apparently." That's when we heard the drone of flyboys… except it was a bit different. It looked like a mix of the original flyboys and the Uber-director's little robots. It looks like we have to fight or be captured. "Okay everyone in the air, we are better than they are when it comes to flying and fighting at the same time!"

At once we all rose into the air and got into fighting positions. Total could fly by now, just for short periods of time of course. Akila stayed on the ground growling and flashing her teeth. "Iggy you're in charge of getting Akila out of here if we need to make a quick get-a-way, okay?" Iggy nodded and that's when the flyboy bots reached us. I guess they aren't flyboys anymore, but flyboy bots. The bots sure does make a difference.

I automatically snapped one in the neck with my fist and nothing. Okay now what? That's when I saw Fang hit one in the neck and accidently kick one in the back of the foot. Smoke started to come out of its ears and it fell to the ground. Oh lovely I just have to hit them in the heel of their feet… which is just as difficult as it sounds while flying.

"Everyone kick them in the heel, which should work." Fang yelled while sending two more flyboy bots to the ground. I looked down quickly and saw that Akila seemed to get the message from Angel and was biting some of the bots on the ground in the foot.

I punched another in head and then grabbed him by the foot using his as a club and smacked three more with him before he just collapsed in my hands. Hmmm sort of like whack a mole, without the mole. Sort of at least.

There seemed to only be about fifty and I'm surprised at that. I guess they didn't expect us to find their weakness so quickly. Thank god that Fang had a clumsy moment and accidently kicked one in the foot. I'll laugh about that later.

Iggy had a scratch on his cheek but it didn't look that bad. Nudge looked fine except for a bruise appearing on her arm, Gazzy had a split lip, and Angel seemed to be fine too except for a scratch on her leg. Total was fine and flying between their legs confusing them while we fought them. It was a team effort now. Everyone was fighting really well actually. Fang and I finished off the last two flyboy bots and we landed.

"Report," I ordered and I got a chorus of fines from everyone and a nod from Fang. I walked around him in a circle to see if he had any injuries. Too many times has Fang said he was fine when he wasn't.

Fang raised an eyebrow, "Checking me out?" Since he seemed okay I punched him gently in the arm and pointed up into the sky. The flock and I as one flew up heading towards Michigan.

...

**So good or bad? See I promised some action and I I delivered… I hope. Fight scenes are not my forte. Review and I might update faster ;) **


	4. Relaxing Moments

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 3**

**Sorry about the slow updates… I'm just not inspired…**

**And I don't feel love from updates (**

**Oh and I have got to mention. This is a FAX story so don't start freaking out and thinking this will be just like MR4. Yea it mentions Global Warming but it still revolves around ITEX and you will be learning more about ITEX's plan and there is a twist in there that I'm pretty positive that none of you expected… so bear with me. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, James Patterson is the man who came up with this great idea. This is fanfiction, and something that I came up with using Patterson's books.**

"Fang I hate you!" I stuck my tongue out at him and he chuckled. Fang had made me sit with Gazzy on the plane…. And I think I almost suffocated. Fang just smirked at me again and said, "Oh come on Max, you know you loooooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvveeee me!" The flock all started to laugh while I felt a blush creep up my face… oh crap. I heard someone coughing behind me and spun around to see Dr. Wonderful… and felt my face become even redder.

We were currently in Greenland on a dock in front of a big boat waiting for someone to come out and explain what we were doing here.

"Hello everyone, its sooooo nice to see you all again." Dr. Wonderful smiled at us. Gag, whatever she isn't glad to see us ALL. She's glad to see her darling Fang.

"Max!" Angel glared at me, "that wasn't very nice of you." Everyone was looking at me now. Fang gave me a 'what's up with you look?' I gave them all a 'what' look and they looked away, except for Fang who was just staring at me.

"Okay, so we're here. So could you explain what we're doing here?" Dr. Wonderful looked confused and looked at me strangely. I don't understand why I'm acting this way, it's not like me.

"You mean you don't know?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked you now would I?" Oh I can't stop being mean! Stop it Max. Have some self control!!

"Max!" Nudge looked at me stunned.

"Umm why don't we all go on board and I'll try to explain everything to you, alright?" I gave a slight nod and the flock all flew on board. I was just about to follow them when Fang grabbed my elbow.

"What on earth is wrong with you?" Fang asked me. I just glared at him and tore my arm out of his grasp and flew up on the deck of the boat.

As I was following Dr. Dwyer downstairs I was beating myself up. What was wrong with me? Why did I keep messing things up for myself? Everything seemed to be good between myself and Fang… but now? Gosh I was getting jealous… again! And just when I thought things were getting normal or normalish again.

My thoughts were interrupted when Dr. Dwyer led us to a conference room and we all sat around the table. I sat down as far away from Dr. Wonderful as possible and was surprised when Fang sat down right next to me.

Fang POV:

What on earth is wrong with Max? Everything has been fine lately. We haven't really been arguing and we've even joked around a bit. Everything has been going so well… and now. She's acting really… well weird. 'She's jealous of Brigid Fang.' I looked over at Angel and she was looking at me with a DUH look. Why would she be jealous though? 'Because Max feels like you like her.' But why? That's just crazy! 'Well she doesn't know that Fang.'

Huh… I guess I just need to show her how I really feel. I slightly smiled at that.

Max POV again:

Dr. Dwyer stood up and cleared her throat. "Well welcome to onto The Dawn. That is the name of this ship."

I interrupted her, "Yea that's nice and all. But could you please get to the point? I really want to know what we're doing here." Yea that was blunt but I'm not in a very patient mood at the moment.

She blinked at me and continued, "Instead of doing research on the wide topic of Global Warming we are focusing on studying Polar bears. Polar bears are suffering from Global Warming and we are worried that Polar bears may become extinct in the near future. So I'm going to be studying polar bears since I specialize with animals." We all thought back on the penguins at that.

"You all are here for your own mission apparently. I got a call from Dr. Martinez and Jeb and they informed me that you all have your own mission. But that somehow you need to come up here to the North Pole to complete it. And would appreciate it if you could travel with me and stay on The Dawn for a while. They also said you would be a great help with studying the Polar bears. So they wanted you to come out here to help out with the Polar bears but also for some other purpose."

Ummm okay? More Global Warming stuff… just great.

Akila then randomly walked up to Dr. Dwyer and start to rub against her legs and Total jumped up onto the table. "Hmmmm I guess it's back to saving the world. Hey does anyone have some hot chocolate? I swear its cold in here. Even though we stopped and bought some winter clothes back in the states… this is crazy weather." And with that Total went and snuggled up in Angel's arms. We all gave Total a strange look for acting like Nudge. Then we looked at Nudge and she just shrugged… it seemed like this was going to be a very strange day.

Later that night we were all outside stargazing. Dr. Dwyer had shown us around the ship and introduced us to the crew. There weren't any scientists this time except for Dr. Dwyer. There was just the Captain, the first mate, a cook, a navigator, and a few deck hands. So it was a bit easier for us all to relax… a bit that is.

Iggy had taken to carrying Akila around and didn't really complain about it. He joked it was like lifting weights and that he then wouldn't have to exercise. So Akila got really attached to Iggy and would actually follow him around a bit. Total was starting to give Iggy some dirty looks though. Akila and Total went up the front of the ship and as soon as they left Iggy laughed.

"What's up with Total?" Iggy asked, "That dog has been giving off some negative vibes when he's around me."

"I think he's jealous of all the attention that Akila is giving you but could be giving him." Nudge supplied.

"Hey, wow it sure is cold up here." Dr. Dwyer said as she walked over to us. "You could all go downstairs you know," she frowned seeing us all look unhappy and cold. But you know… we don't like small enclosed spaces for too long. "I bet you all would be warmer if you huddled up and shared your body heat," she added as she saw that we were all shivering.

Angel went and sat in front of Gasman and he wrapped his arms around his sister. After a few minutes Angel smiled, "Thanks Brigid, you're right. It sure is warmer." Oh I was jealous right now… it's freaking cold out here.

Nudge went over to Iggy and snuggled up to his side… "Brr its cold, come on Iggy you can be my brother." She then stuck her tongue out at Gazzy and Angel, before they all started to crack up laughing. Akila and Total walked over to join us and snuggled together. Dr. Dwyer walked off to the side to confer with the Captain.

I suddenly felt warm arms wrap around me and I twisted around to see Fang. I tried to get up but he just tightened his hold on me. "You're shivering," he whispered in my ear. "So either you can share body heat with me, your best friend. Or go snuggle up with one of the crew members. It's your choice. Or of course freeze." At that I stopped struggling and leaned back against his chest and looked up at the stars.

I hate to admit it but this was really nice. The flock was nice and safe… and even thought it was cold, it was quite relaxing up here. The lulling sound of the waves against the boat, the sound of my flock joking around with each other and laughing, Fang's warm, strong arms wrapped securely around me. The beat of his heart… it all made me feel safe and calm. That's when I fell asleep.

Fang POV:

Since Max seems to be slow and doesn't realize how I feel about her, I've decided to show her; in little ways of course. I don't want to overwhelm her. Besides I don't know if I could stand it if when I kissed her again, and she ran away again. So I'm going to take it nice and slow, and show her that I care; even if it kills me.

After a while of holding Max in my arms I realized that she had fallen asleep. However I wasn't ready to just let go yet so I just pulled her closer to me and listened to the sound of her soft breathing, the flock's laughter, the waves crashing against the boat and felt an inner calm wash over me… this moment was perfect. Max asleep in my arms, under the stars. What could be better than this?

I just hope she doesn't kill me in the morning. I saw that Iggy nudge Gazzy and they both stood up. Gazzy picking up a sleeping Angel and start towards the stairs to take her to bed, while Iggy picked up Nudge to put her to bed. Iggy and Gasman were sharing a room while Nudge, Angel, Total, and Akila were sharing a room. I had my own separate room and so did Max.

I followed their lead and picked Max up. She subconsciously wrapped her arms around my neck. But hey… I was not complaining at all. I walked down the hall and tried to balance Max with one arm and my knee while reaching over to open her door. I walked into the room and nudge the door shut with my foot. I gently placed Max down onto her bed and sat down next to her.

Oh wow she was so beautiful, not only was she stunning on the inside, she was so beautiful on the inside… I reached out and tucked a lock of hair out of her face and behind her ear. Just as I was standing to leave, Max's arm shot out grabbed my arm. She tugged on it and mumbled stay. I just stood there shocked until she tugged on my hand again and I fell forward falling onto the bed. I tried to stand again but Max tugged on my hand some more… well I guess I'm staying here tonight.

**Hey that's another 4 pages on word!! Go me; I'm on a role lately. Yea this is a sort of filler chapter. But believe me, there will be action and a twist ahead. But this is only chapter 4 so I want to take it more slowly. I want at least five reviews before I update again. I don't want to ask for reviews… but I'm not getting any. And how am I going to improve if I don't get criticism or know if anyone likes my story? So reviews are greatly appreciated. **


	5. Max freaks out

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 5**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews They make me want to write.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, James Patterson is the man who came up with this great idea. This is fanfiction, and something that I came up with using Patterson's books.**

Max POV:

Hmm I snuggled closer to something warm in my bed. It's so cold in the North Pole, I didn't think that I would wake up in the morning and be warm. I sighed in contentment and snuggled even closer to the source of warmth. It wasn't until five minutes later that I realized that there shouldn't be something warm in my bed that I can snuggle up to.

I carefully extended my arm and my hand came in contact with something warm, lean, and hard… Oh my god it just moved! I cracked open my eyes and screamed, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I jumped up out of bed staring at Fang. My hand had been touching his chest and I freaked out when it moved up and down while he was breathing. Why was he in my bed?

Fang shot up out of bed and got in a fighting position, when he realized that it was just me he lowered his hands and relaxed his stance. "What was that for?"

"Why are you in my bed??"

"Bec…" Fang was interrupted when the entire flock plus Dr. Dwyer ran into my room.

"What happened?" Iggy's sightless eyes seemed to be looking at me while he spoke.

"Why are your clothes all wrinkled?" Gazzy asked eyeing Fang's clothes and my own.

"OMG Max why did you scream, are you okay? Did you have a nightmare or something? Yea why are your clothes all wrinkled? Did Fang spend the night in here? Ohhh I knew you two were in love!" Iggy clamped his hand over Nudge's mouth before the Nudge Channel could continue and embarrass me even more.

Dr. Dwyer coughed slightly and tried to lead the flock out of the room. As soon as everyone left Fang turned to me.

"What was that for?" He asked.

"Sorry I just didn't expect to wake up and find you in my bed. Why were you sleeping in here anyways?"

Fang's cheeks turned slightly red and he looked down at the floor while he spoke, "Well last night you fell asleep on the deck, so I carried you down here to your room. I put you down on your bed and when I tried to leave you grabbed my hand and wouldn't let me. So you kept tugging on my hand whenever I tried to leave, and I was tired so I thought that I'd just sleep here since you wouldn't let me go."

"Oh… well sorry for freaking out then. Sorry about… well everything." Fang seemed to realize that I wasn't just apologizing for screaming, or not letting him leave. He knew I was apologizing for being so unbearable lately.

He gave a curt nod and was just about to leave when out of nowhere I said, "Did you know that you're really warm?" Fang didn't turn around, he just froze. Seconds ticked by but it seemed like days.

"No I didn't. Thanks for the info." And with that he left. If he had turned around I would have seen that he was grinning.

Why on earth did I do that? What compelled me to say that? Next thing I know I'm going to be telling him that I love the way he smells… I actually do. However he so does not need to know that at all.

After I got dressed and finished getting ready I went into the dining area to see my flock chowing down on breakfast. Apparently Iggy and the Cook made breakfast and no one thought to inform me.

The only seat open was next to Fang and I blushed remembering how I freaked out this morning. Oh god I'm never going to live that down.

Once everyone was finished with breakfast we all went up onto the deck. After stretching a bit we one by one flew up into the air. Total even decided to join us for a little while to stretch his own wings.

He was a pretty good at flying surprisingly. However he could only fly for half an hour at a time, and that was only if he tried. Usually he just flew for fifteen minutes then had someone carry him for about half an hour before he would fly again. Akila stayed on board however.

"Hey Max what do you think our mission here is?" Angel asked me.

"I really don't know sweetie, Jeb wouldn't have sent us here unless there was something important to do. I know we are supposed to save the world. And I know that speaking to Congress about Global Warming was important and in a way helping save the world. But when I think about ITEX and the school I think we have more work to do with that."

"Ooh yea you mean stuff like the by-half plan," Iggy supplied.

"Yea exactly Ig. But I don't really get much about it. I mean do you think they plan on blowing up half the world? And do they plan on separating special people for the ones meant to die? These are all questions we need to find the answers too… though I don't get how we can find the answers here."

"Hey Max do you think it has something to do with Polar bears? Or are we just helping out so we have a place to stay?" Gazzy joined the conversation.

"I think it's the latter Gasman. I guess we'll figure it our eventually, right Max?" Nudge had joined the conversation too at this point.

"After the world can we go to France again Max? There is no style here. France has such a lovely culture and dogs can eat at the cafes." Total joined in too. Everyone had said something except for Fang.

"Hey Fang what do you think?" I asked him.

Fang just shrugged at me; lovely just lovely. After our flight we landed on deck and went down to the conference room. Iggy was teaching everyone how to play black jack. Apparently since the cards were white Iggy could read the numbers. Everyone was playing except Fang and me.

Once everyone was into the game I tugged on Fang's sleeve and motioned with my head to leave the room. Fang followed me out and I lead him to the dining area. No one seemed to be there so I sat down, and Fang followed suit.

"So are you alright? You seem quiet lately." Fang just nodded his reply. And I huffed in frustration. I put my face in my hands and sighed. This sucks, I have to save the world when I don't even know how. And Fang hasn't said a single word since this morning.

This sucks times seven. I heard the scrape of the chair as Fang pushed it back. Great he's leaving now without even saying anything. I didn't hear any footsteps leaving though… but duh it's Fang. He almost never makes a sound while he walks.

That's when I felt warm, strong hands upon my shoulders. Fang without saying anything was rubbing my back and suddenly I felt relaxed. All the tension left my body and I was like silly putty in Fang's hands.

I sighed in content and hear Fang chuckle. "Hmm how do you do that Fang?" I heard Fang's silent question hang in the air and continued. "You seem to just take all the problems away for the moment and make me feel better. I feel so relaxed now. It's almost like magic, are you sure you don't have another power?"

Fang's hands stopped moving and went still. I was joking about the last part but maybe he didn't know I was joking. I was about to tell him I was joking when Fang turned my chair around so I was facing him. He crouched down in front of me and that's when I saw the look in his eyes. I didn't know what it was but it was the same look he had when he first kissed me in the cave, and again on the dock.

His eyes betrayed his emotionless face. I saw so many emotions swirling around in those dark eyes. Hurt, longing, confusion, sadness, happiness, so many emotions… but there seemed to be one I couldn't identify. I knew what was coming. I knew I could prevent it by leaving right now. But I couldn't leave, I didn't want to.

Fang lifted his hand up to my face and gently brushed his hand against my cheek. My breath caught in my throat; I was a deer caught in headlights. Fang brought his other hand to rest on my knee, what before I would have found warm now felt burning. Oh God, Max move! You know that there can never be anything other than friendship between us.

Fang took his hand off my knee and brought it to tilt my chin up. "Max let me take all your problems away. Let me comfort you; let me be your magic. I can stop all your pain, if you would just let me." He looked imploringly at me before he leaned forward until his lips were an inch away from mine. I would just have to lean forward the tiniest bit and we would be kissing.

Fang brought one hand off my cheek and onto the back of my neck. He however didn't pull me closer. I got the message he was sending, I would be the one to make the kiss happen. I shoved all thoughts from my mind, we shouldn't be doing this… but oh god I want to.

I leaned forward until our lips brushed together and Fang took over from there. He tilted his head to the side and what before was a brush of the lips turned into so much more. It was gentle yet I felt the passion behind it. I brought my hands up and they tangled into his hair.

Somehow, I don't know how but somehow Fang had picked me up and pressed me up against the wall. This kiss wasn't like the kiss on the beach that I gave him, or the one in the cave, or the one on the dock. This kiss was ten times better and I have got to admit those other kisses were pretty dang fabulous.

Fang was kissing me and I was kissing him back and trying to push all thoughts from my brain. After what felt like years but were only minutes, rationality seemed to push its way into my mind. I shouldn't be doing this with Fang. He was my best friend. I pulled away from Fang but he was still holding me against the wall so there was no where for me to run.

"Fang we shouldn't be doing this… the flock…" I stammered out while the kiss just kept flipping around in my head.

Fang sighed and said with much more force than I thought he would use, "I don't care Max; do you know how long I've wanted to kiss you like that, and not have you run away?" And with that he leaned forward again to capture my lips with his own. I wanted to just kiss him back. I felt myself melting in his arms, but I couldn't do that. Just as I was about to pull back I heard the door bang open. Fang however didn't seem to hear it and continue to kiss me before we both heard a gasp.

Fang let go of me and stepped back so fast I almost fell flat on my face after being pressed up against the wall. We both looked towards the door and saw Dr. Dwyer standing in the door way. She was fire engine red and looked shocked.

"I… umm I'm sorry to interrupt. I'll just… umm yea leave and yea…" just as she was about to leave I found my voice.

"No it's okay. Did you need something?" I was so proud of myself that I wasn't a puddle on the floor after that kiss, and that my voice didn't shake… much. My knees felt weak but I was not about to give Fang the satisfaction of knowing that his kisses could do that to me. But somehow I got the feeling that he knew.

"Yea um… actually I wanted to speak with you Max. Fang if you'll excuse us…" With that I followed Dr. Dwyer out the room leaving a stunned Fang behind.

**I could have kept going but I wanted to leave a little bit of suspense. See you asked for FAX and I gave you FAX. Don't worry though it won't be an "I love you, I love you too, Muah! Forget all of our problems and let's just be unrealistically sweet and gagish." I'm a fan of FAX but it won't be too unrealistic.**

**I didn't have Max run away either. She probably would have if Fang wasn't holding her up against the wall but that's what makes it more realistic. I hope you enjoyed it since about a page and a half of this is just FAX. **

**SO tell me if you like the FAX like this or should I tone it down a bit. Don't worry, I won't have them get icky though, they are only 14. **

**Three and a half pages, I'm still on a role. This is so much better than my usual page and a half chapter. Reviews are welcome.**

**Oh and I went through and edited. But I've realized that I overlook mistakes in my own writing but not other peoples… since I know what it is supposed to say. I however don't want a Beta. So you'll just have to tell me if you see mistakes and I'll make sure not to make them in the future.**

**Thanks **


	6. A brotherly moment

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 6**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews This chapter was supposed to be longer. I already know what is supposed to happen but I don't seem to be able to write it down. So this is what I've got so far. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, James Patterson is the man who came up with this great idea. This is fanfiction, and something that I came up with using Patterson's books.**

Fang POV:

"Man that is funny. Oh I wish I was there when Dr. D walked in." Iggy and I were out flying and here I was pouring my heart out to him, and he was laughing at me!

"Dude that's not funny. Besides she said, and I quote 'Fang we shouldn't be doing this… the flock…' What is that supposed to mean?"

"Hey but she didn't run away this time soo… that's progress right man?"

"The only reason why she didn't run away was because I was holding her up against the wall."

"DUDE! You were pressing her against the wall. I thought you said you kissed her, not made out with her!"

"We didn't make out… I just kissed her." Iggy raised his eyebrow at that. "Okay maybe I went a little overboard. But I just wanted her to understand how I feel."

"Did you ever think about using words instead of your lips to do that?"

"Iggy! Come on you know I'm not good with words."

"Yea that's why you have a blog… with words." I gave him a look but then remembered he couldn't see it. "Listen Max is like my big sister. I love her to death and you know that. If it was some other guy I would probably punch him for kissing Max. But you're my bro and I know you love her. And since you know that I will kick your butt if you hurt her I know you're not going to hurt her. So this is why I'm going to tell you this very important piece of advice. TELL HER HOW YOU FEEL!" He then wiggled his eyebrows in what seemed to be a vulgar way.

"That's easy for you to say, but she freaks out whenever I kiss her."

"Man maybe you need to takes some lessons on kissing if you're so bad that she runs away."

I smirked at that, "Iggy believe me she likes the kissing. She melted, MELTED as soon as I kissed her. That's not the problem. Believe me."

"Oh Fang has some game huh."

"You did not just say that. Come on let's just go back to the ship."

**(Sorry about Fang being out of character.)**

Max POV:

"Max I wanted to know if you all wanted to go out with me to take some notes on Polar bears. Probably in a day or so."

"Sure, I'll go tell the others." I was about to leave when Dr. Dwyer coughed. I spun around.

"I was just wondering what's going on with you and Fang… that is if you don't mind me asking."

"Well we're best friends."

Dr. Dwyer raised her eyebrow at that, and I blushed.

"Well Max I think Fang wants to be more than friends. And I think that you do too, even if you won't admit it to yourself." She blushed at that for some reason. "If the rest of the flock wants to come along we should find some ice where we can find some Polar bears."

And with that Dr. Dwyer leaves the room. What did she mean by "even if you won't admit it to yourself?"

Total runs into the room, "Hey, Angel keeps saying something about Polar bears, bouncing on her feet and squealing.

"We do not another incident like we had with the penguins. Let's go make sure that rules are set out."

Total chuckled and we started upstairs together.

**A brotherly moment. Sorry about the slow updates but I got into this trilogy and had to read all the books. And I loved the first and then read the other two. I freaking hate the end of the third book but it's still a good book I guess.**

**The books are The Named, The Dark, and The Key. Just in case you want to check them out. **

**Sorry about the shortness. **


	7. A strange feeling

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 7**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews. Sorry about the slow updates but I've been reading a lot. My mom is trying to get me to go outside and away from my laptop. That's not going to happen. Oh and I know ZERO about Polar bears so don't expect to be enlightened… you might me able to enlighten me though lol. **

Max POV:

"Oh my god! Max that Polar bear is freaking huge! It has really big teeth too!"

"Yea I know that Nudge. Don't get too close okay?"

"Okay Max."

"Well this is quite disturbing," Dr. Dwyer muttered.

"What's disturbing Doc?" Iggy questioned.

"Well this bear looks quite thin. It seems as it's not eating enough."

"Umm Max I have this weird feeling." Nudge interrupted.

I walked over to Nudge and rubbed her arm. We all continued looking at the Polar bear in the distance. We weren't too close but close enough to observe.

"Hey Angel do you think you could talk to it?" Iggy asked.

"I can try…" Angel got quiet as she concentrated looking at the Polar bear. "Apparently there isn't so much land for Polar bears to live on. It seems what there is, is getting smaller as time passes."

"That would be due to Global Warming," Doctor Dwyer added.

"He is also thinking that there is something evil in the water. So I'm guessing that's why he isn't eating well. He tries to stay away from water as much as he can. He seems really scared and worried."

"Wow that's strange," Dr. Dwyer said.

"Max I'm getting this real strange feeling. I think that we should go back to the boat," Nudge looked scared as she said this.

"Okay back to the boat," we all did an Up and Away. Iggy grabbed Dr. Dwyer and we flew back to the ship.

Once we landed on the deck Dr. Dwyer wanted to email some pictures that she took to an associate and finish some other work. She soon left us and the rest of us looked around bored.

"Um so what do we do now?" Gasman asked.

"Well whatever you want to I guess Gazzy," Gasman got an evil look on his face and high fived Iggy, "except make bombs that is."

Iggy turned to me and his eyes landed on me. It was still creepy that he could do that. "Dream killer," he muttered and stuck his tongue out at me. We all started laughing at that. Until Total trotted up to up and moaned.

"What's up with the moaning Total?" I asked while Iggy started to laugh. He is so nasty at times seriously. I'm going to have a talk with him later.

"No one fed me! They just put two bowls of that dog food garbage in on the floor. That stuff is vile! I refuse to eat it. I don't know how Akila eats it at all. Now I'm dying from hunger. I can feel the acids in my stomach eating me inside out! I need food I tell you! Feed me!"

"Chill Total, we'll feed you, okay? You do know that you're a dog though right?" With that Total went after me trying to nip at my ankles. "Stop now or I'll let you starve." He stopped.

"Okay that's great but what do we do for the rest of the day?" Nudge questioned.

"I don't know you could play games or something?"

"Hmm I think Gazzy and I will go play a card game… like Uno. You know I can sense the colors and all. Come on Gazzy." Iggy and Gasman grinned.

"Yea right! Just please don't blow up anything. They chuckled and ran off.

"Oh my god, I have a brilliant idea. Let's go play beauty salon. We can do our hair and stuff!" Nudge of course was the one to suggest that.

"That sounds like so much fun Nudge!" Oh crap she's got Angel hooked.

"I'm out," Fang announced, "I'll go update my blog or something." With that he left. I shot him a desperate look for help, but he just grinned and mouthed, 'have fun.' Oh drat!

Total moaned again, "I'm coming with you Fang. You still need to feed me!"

"Come on Max," Angel grabbed one hand while she motioned for Nudge to do the same. Oh double drat!

. It turns out that Brigid had some hair stuff that she let us use. She says she never uses it but her family keeps buying her gifts like that.

Nudge had straightened her hair with a straight iron, or flattening iron. I'm not sure what it's called I just know that I freaked out because I thought Nudge was going to burn all her hair off. **(I can not leave the house without straightening my hair. Max will you ever learn? JK) **

Angel had this really complicated looking hair style. You can bet I didn't help with anything and Nudge did it.

Some parts of her hair were straight, some curly, some like in waves I think Nudge called it crimped, and I've got to admit it looked good. You wouldn't think that it would look so good but it did.

Ahh and lastly me, Nudge just curled my hair and pinned my bangs up. I almost killed her when she came at me with the curler though.

Three excruciating hours later we all met up to go eat. As we sat down Gazzy, and Dr. Dwyer complimented us all on our hair. Angel and Nudge giggled and blushed. Iggy said that he couldn't see if our hair looked awful or not, and Fang just nodded in our direction. Oh so we get the silent Fang back.

"So what were you boys up to while I was working? I think I know what the girls were doing," and she winked in our direction. Angel and Nudge smiled at her.

"Iggy and I were building bombs," Gazzy answered with a bright, adorable smile. He said it so innocently too. Dr. Dwyer coughed and started choking on her water. Iggy pounded on her back and she finally got control of her breathing.

"Isn't that dangerous!?" she looked very confused and worried.

"Yea but we're experts," Gazzy quipped.

Dr. Dwyer looked over at me and I just rolled my eyes and gave her a look that said, 'just forget it and move on.' She slightly nodded and looked at Fang. "How about you Fang?"

When he looked up at her I felt my stomach start to twist and flip. She asked everyone what they were doing, she wasn't treating Fang any different than the others but my stomach didn't seem to understand that.

Fang pushed his food around with his fork and took his time before answering. "I updated my blog and then I did some research on Polar bears."

"You'll have to show me your blog one day," she smiled. "So did you find the information you found out today interesting?"

"A bit, but Angel is more of an animal person than I am." With that he looked down and kept playing with his food. Dr. Dwyer looked confused since usually Fang was very friendly with her. She gave me a look and I jut shrugged. I wasn't his keeper.

After everyone finished dinner we played some board game; Iggy and Fang were a team since Iggy couldn't actually see. Angel won of course. After we were finished I held my fist out. Dr. Dwyer looked a bit startled by it.

Fang stuck his fist on top of mine, then Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and lastly Angel. Just before I started tapping on their hands Angel reached over to Dr. Dwyer, grabbed her hand and added it to our stack.

I looked at her surprised but she just smiled at me. Everyone else but Iggy stared at Angel too. We NEVER let anyone in on our stacks. But I didn't protest. I tapped everyone's hands and bid them all a goodnight.

I reached my bedroom and just as I was closing the door, someone's foot got in the way. I looked up to see Fang enter my room and close the door behind him.

Gulp.

**Oh what happens now?**


	8. Hormones?

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 8**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews. I haven't gotten one mean review yet. And a couple of you are giving me criticism so thanks.**

**Short chapter I know. But I'll update again by the end of Saturday… I hope. Reviews help. **

Max POV:

"Uh Fang did you need something?" I swear my heart was racing.

"Yea we need to talk." Oh crap not another talk about our feelings. Gulp. Why is he always doing this to me?

"Then talk." Oh gosh I'm talking less than Fang does now.

"Okay. Nudge was saying that she was getting a weird feeling today. Do you have any idea what it could be?" Whoa wait a second! Rewind! Did he just as me a question that has nothing to do with us? Oh yes he did! Whew I'm saved. Wait a second. Does this mean that he doesn't like me at all? What is with that? He kisses me and then dumps me? I should be happy that he didn't bring "us" up. So why do I feel sad?

"Earth to Max; what's wrong with you?" One eyebrow rose and he smirked at me.

He casually leaned against the wall and all I could think about was how good he looked. What is wrong with me? Why am I acting this way? _Because you like him Max. You're a teenager; your hormones are on a rampage. It's quite natural really. _

"Oh shut up what do you know?" I yelled.

"What?" Fang looked confused now.

"Oh sorry… it was my stupid voice."

"What did it say? Did it say anything about what Nudge could have been getting a vibe from?"

"Uh no… since when are you this talk much anyways? So what were you saying before it interrupted?"

"Yea I was talking about Nudge. But that can wait. So what did the voice say?"

"Nothing!" I blurted out and felt my cheeks heat up.

"Nothing huh?"

"Yea… zip zero nada." Oh God shoot me now. He knew gave me a look that seemed to say 'I know that you're lying.'

"Well if it said nothing then how did it talk to you? With silence?"

"Okay it said something, but not anything to need to know about."

"So it didn't involve me huh?" He looked very amused by now and one corner of his mouth went up in a half smile.

"We are so off topic. You wanted to talk about Nudge having a bad feeling when we were by the Polar bears. And no I do not know what it could have been. But we might want to check it out."

"You just don't want to tell me, but its okay you'll tell me eventually. And I agree that we should check it out. Angel said that the Polar bear felt evil in the water. So do you think we should start with the water?"

"Yea definitely we'll start with the ocean. But we have a problem."

"And that would be?"

"We'll freeze! Plus if we don't freeze we'll have to keep coming up for air and we couldn't get far."

"You're right," he looked nervous, "Maybe you should ask your voice what we should do."

"Yea like it will listen to me!"

"Try and it might."

"Why do you even think that it would help?'

"Because it just might Max, give it a try."

"I don't want to Dad." I crossed my arms over my chest and pouted.

"Since when are you five? And never call me dad again; I'm not your father. I think that position is taken already." _Oh flirting now are you. How cute. Stay focused on your mission though. _What is our mission again? _To save the world Max. _No freaking duh! Fine let's move on. Do you think we should be checking out the water? _Yes I do. And in answer to your unasked question wait for a few days and you'll get a package._

"How the heck can we get a package out in the middle of nowhere?"

"I see you got an answer."

"Shut up Fang you're distracting me." Fang grinned at that sentence.

"Oh you've seen nothing yet, I can be more distracting than that." And he winked. What on earth is wrong with Fang? He's been all quiet and normal in front of the flock. But with me… he gets all unfangish. **(Yes he is OOC but he said in an earlier chapter that he'll have to show Max how he feels. And we all know Fang is less Fangish with Max than anyone else so… yea.)**

"Oh whatever," but still laughed, "I guess we're getting a package somehow that will allow us to not freeze and breathe… I think."

"Alright then. Goodnight." Fang stood up fully instead of leaning on the wall and walked over to the door. "Oh and by the way. I've been talking this much since now. You know that I'll always be there for you, and I'm pretty sure that I can talk to you. Right?"

That caught me unexpected. I just dully nodded trying not to gape. Fang has NEVER been this open with me. Fang left softly closing the door behind him.

Oh what a day this has been.

**I'm not happy with this chapter. I wanted Fang to talk about the strange feeling Nudge had. But out of nowhere the voice popped in and Fang and Max starting going all OOCish. But as my fingers moved over the keyboard that's just what came out… so I hope it wasn't too bad. And I wanted Fax but not too much just yet. So I thought a little flirting with Fang was enough for this chapter. There will be more FAX later on though.**


	9. The box

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 9**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews. I haven't gotten one mean review yet. And a couple of you are giving me criticism so thanks.**

**Short chapter I know. But I'll update again by the end of Saturday… I hope. Reviews help. **

Max POV:

"You can't do that, it's cheating!"

"Yes I can!"

"No you aren't allowed to do that!"

"Yes I am!"

"Not!"

"I am!"

"Not!"

"I am!"

"Stop it!" Angel and Gasman had been playing chess and after arguing for about five minutes straight over if a move was legal or not Iggy finally exploded for them to shut up! Iggy was lightly smacking his head against the table and I was so close to joining him.

"Max I'm hungry, and I'm bored!!" Nudge whined.

"Yea well we're all basically bored. But don't worry I have something planned… we just have to wait for some equipment is all."

Everyone turned to me at that. No one knew about what I was talking about except Fang. I actually really didn't want to tell them that. But it slipped through my mind because I was so frustrated. We had been on this boat for another two days after I talked to my voice. Those days we went out with Brigid so she could look at Polar bears and take some notes and all that stuff. Then we would come back on the boat play board games or amuse ourselves some other way. But after a while everyone had enough of this and was anxious.

AND BORED! "Listen you'll hear about it soon enough, you don't have to worry about it right now."

"Max we aren't babies. We've all been through what you've been through… well except having the stress of leading the flock. We are just as involved in this as you are. You can trust us to be able to handle it. Don't baby us, we can handle it." That was my baby telling me she wasn't a baby anymore.

"I'll always be your baby Max. But you have to clue us in on things."

"Fine, I guess you should know. It'll kill time anyways." So I told them about how Fang and I remembered about how the Polar bear sensed something evil in the water and how Nudge had a bad feeling and we want to go check out what's in the water. And all about how my voice said we have to wait for some equipment and all that stuff. Blah, blah, blah. I won't bore you with everything I said.

Fang just nodded silently while I spoke. Seems he is back to his quiet self.

"So my bad feeling helped us figure our mission? For the moment anyways." Nudge spoke up.

"Without you and Angel we would probably be sitting here bored for weeks and weeks and never figure anything out unless my voice felt like gracing us. You two did well." I smiled at them and they smiled back at me."

"Gazzy are you feeling unappreciated, because I am?"

"Oh you poor babies, come here." I made little smoochy noises and grabbed Gasman. He pulled away from me and jumped onto the table. You'll have to catch me before you kiss me, he ran out the room and up the stairs.

So naturally I ran after him making little kissy noises. What can I say? I'm just that bored that I'll act silly. Everyone else left in the room laughed and ran after us to see if I would catch him.

I was running around the deck trying to catch Gasman. Even though I was faster he was smaller and able to twist out of my hands within seconds. God he's like a freaking ballet dancer.

The rest of the flock stood on the side lines cracking up at our silliness and soon attracted Brigid and the Captain to come look at what was going on too.

"You'll never take me alive!" Gazzy roared before sliding down between my legs and by the time I spun around he had slid all the way to where the flock was and was hiding behind Iggy.

Nudge and Angel were bent over laughing, Fang was quietly laughing but still standing while Total was rolling around the floor gasping for air. Akila just looked perplexed and continued staring at us. I quickly ran in the opposite direction of Gazzy and jumped up whipping out my wings. I flew up and using my super speed aimed straight for Gazzy, I flew down and grabbed him all in a matter of seconds.

Once he was in my arms I gave him a big sloppy kiss on the cheek and he screamed like he was dying. I flew back down and dropped him. "I'm melting… melting…melti… and then he collapsed on the ground.

"Good dog, play dead." Everyone except Total and Akila laughed at that. Akila since she didn't understand and Total didn't find it funny, he was indignant.

"That is racist!" He huffed than stomped away. I grinned and rolled my eyes. Since we were on deck I looked around. That's when I noticed something in the water. It looked… like a chest/box thing. What on earth?

"Fang," he looked up as soon as I said his name and patiently waited, "over there." He looked over in the direction I was pointing and saw the chest in the water.

"Do you think we should grab it?"

"What if it explodes?" Dr. Dwyer seemed concerned.

"Well we were expecting a delivery…" She looked confused when Fang said that.

I slightly nodded to Fang and we took off. Swooped down and we each grabbed a handle and lifted.

"Dang it's heavy," I muttered as we flew back on the deck and placed it down. It wasn't huge but it wasn't little either. It was about 3.5 feet long and 2.5 feet wide. I guess you can tell why it would be heavy. Carved on the top was my name. It simply said Max. It was locked, "Hey Iggy can you pick this lock?"

Dr. Dwyer's head shot up at that. I know we just keep getting better and better huh. Iggy reached into his back pocket and got his kit out. Iggy picked the lock after about a minute and stepped back grinning.

Fang motioned with his hand for me to open it. "When did you become a gentleman Fang?"

"Since there's a chance that it's a trap and it just might explode. Better you than me right?" Fang joked.

"Oh why thank you."

Fang just rolled his eyes and motioned towards the trunk again. "Just a second, hey do you know what material this is made of Dr. Dwyer. Because it looks like metal but it shouldn't be able to float like that should it? Because it's really heavy and I seriously doubt that it could stay afloat if it's full."

"Hmm you're right. I doubt that it should be able to float, and I don't know what kind of metal that is. It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before."

"Alright well we might as well open it," I muttered and reached over to open it. Inside I found what looked like these little mask thingies. I can't really explain them, I guess they are goggles but there is this round little thing that looks like it goes in your mouth.

"Hey Max look, there's a note." Total interrupted.

"When did you come back?"

"Well I got bored," I rolled my eyes and just shook my head. Dogs.

There were these little suit things that looked like wet suits… but when you touched them they were extremely soft and warm, almost like they were heated. "Wait shouldn't there be like little air tanks and flippers and stuff?" Nudge asked me.

"Umm no, the note says that there are suits for all of us and that they are made of some material that will keep us from getting wet or freezing our butts off. And there are no flippers because then we won't be able to fight at our full awesomeness." I looked over at Fang.

He grinned and said, "Well I took the note and made it more interesting."

"What else does it say Mr. Interesting?" I rolled my eyes at him. I've been doing that a lot lately actually.

"Well that the little round things there will take the water form the ocean and separate the oxygen from the hydrogen so we'll have oxygen to breathe. And that it's better than air tanks because air tanks will run out of air eventually. But as long as there is water we have oxygen. Blah, blah a lot of stuff on how it works that we don't care about… Oh and Total and Akila should stay on the ship." He finished reading.

"Okay then, I guess tomorrow we should check out the 'evil' feeling. Is everyone okay with that?" I got various forms of yes from that.

So that night as I was getting ready for bed, Nudge ran in screaming at the top of her lungs, "AHHHH!" Her eyes were the size of golf balls.

"What's wrong Nudge what happened? Is it another attack? What happened?"

"I needed to go to the bathroom right? Because I really drank a lot at dinner, you know how I had found those little pouches of powder that turn water into different flavors. Well I had a strawberry one, then pink lemonade, then raspberry, and…"

"Nudge get on with it please!"

"Okay well I needed to go to the bathroom… really bad. So I forgot to knock and I walk in and see Fang naked!! I mean EWWWWWWWWWW yuck I didn't need to see that!"

"Why was he naked, how much did you see?!"

"Well he was taking a shower so he got out and then I walked in. Thank god he was holding a towel and it was covering something I SOOOO did not want to see… but ewww still that's just wrong."

I didn't know to be shocked, or laugh. "It's okay honey, just forget about it okay?"

"Okay fine, but I swear this is just wrong."

"Hahaha okay Nudge." Nudge gave one last shudder than left the room. Oh this is kind of funny, I feel like teasing Fang about this… I threw open my door and ran down the hall until I reached Fang's door. I laughed and then I opened his door and peeked in. We don't want another incident like Nudge had.

I peeked in and saw Fang going through his backpack and just froze. I couldn't move at all. Don't worry Fang's lower half was covered, thank god. But he still hadn't put his shirt on. I don't want to get all girly and be drooling over Fang. But he is very fit for being fourteen.

Fang must have heard me gasp or something because he spun around. "Did you need something?"

"Um yea I came to make fun of you."

"Oh really?"

"Yea, apparently Nudge walked in on you?"

Fang turned bright red and put his head in his hands.

"Are you done making fun of me now?"

"Well I had a zillion ways to make fun of you but I decided that I'm going to leave you alone just because of the kindness of my heart." I was so shocked seeing Fang looking so good; that all the teasing remarks I had just flew out of my head.

"Oh thank you. You're so kind." Sarcasm of course.

"I know, really!"

"Well goodnight?"

"Actually I really wanted to ask you what you think of that box. How random is it that it just appears out of nowhere?"

"I really don't know Max. I'm just as clueless as you are."

"Alright well hopefully we'll get some answers tomorrow. Goodnight."

"Sleep tight."

I grinned and finished with, "Don't let the bed bugs bite…" Fang chuckled and smiled at me. The room seemed to brighten. I slowly backed out into the hallway and silently closed the door.

Well today was full of surprises.

**I'm not very fond of this chapter either… it seems to be written weird I think. But I hope you all still like it. **

**Hahahahaha sorry but I had to have someone walk in on Fang. Usually Max walks in on Fang, so I wanted to mix it up a little bit. It made me laugh though because I pictured Nudge running in with HUGE eyes and screaming… **

**Sorry if there are any mistakes but it's like 12:30 in the morning… and I didn't get much sleep since I stayed up till like 5 in the morning the night before… I'll shut up now.**


	10. Great, just great!

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 10**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews. I usually reply to the reviews person by person… but I was too lazy to log in this week… so yea. I'll be wrapping this story up by the end of this month… I hope. Anyways I hope you enjoy. **

**Sorry I haven't updated in like FOREVER.**

Max POV:

"Is that like a huge bubble?" Nudge asked me.

"Uh…" Was my answer.

"Not exactly," Fang supplied.

Okay you're all probably confused so let's go back a couple hours.

"Okay is everyone ready?" I looked around at my flock and saw that they were all dressed in their little wet suit things and they all seemed ready to go. I got various yeses **(Is that the plural of yes? IDK but I'll use it because I'm too lazy to find out)** and a nod from Fang.

"Please be careful everyone," Brigid told us looking concerned.

"So Max do you think there's a monster or something? Because maybe that's why there is evil in the water, or maybe it's something else, because seriously…" Iggy covered Nudge's mouth with his hand and just shook his head.

"I don't know Nudge… well I guess we should get going. Nudge you'll be in the lead with me because we'll need you to lead us to where the feeling is coming from alright?" She nodded.

Gazzy and Iggy cannon-balled into the water and came up splashing each other.

"Is it cold?" Angel asked.

"Nope, actually I'm pretty toasty. These suits are really cool," Gazzy replied before Iggy dunked his under the water. Angel jumped in and then she beckoned to Nudge. Nudge ran off and jumped off the boat too.

I rolled my shoulders and made sure that my wings could still come out of the slits in my suit. These suits came in the perfect sizes and even had slits for our wings. Which I must say is pretty cool if a little odd and too convenient.

"When we get back I want to talk about us," Fang said before jumping off the boat too. You have got to be kidding me? He chooses to tell me that NOW.

I jumped in with the rest of them and made sure that my little air thing was positioned in my mouth correctly. I'm going to have to ask the voice what these things are called later. I swam under the water and looked around to see the rest of my flock following me.

I was just about to call Nudge over to me… but I realized I didn't know how to talk! How the heck do we talk with these things?

_Just talk like you normally would, these are pretty high tech so you can talk even though technically you shouldn't really be able to. _Oh my voice is back…

How can… I was cut off when my voice continued…

_Don't ask._

"Hey Nudge come over here." My voice sounded a little gargled and like it was coming from a distance but I still could be heard. Everyone looked a bit surprised that we could talk and decided to all start talking at once. I rolled my eyes and watched as Nudge swam over to me.

"Lead us to where we need to go." She nodded and closed her eyes treading water. After about a minute her eyes popped open and she shivered. She pointed in a direction and that's where we set off to.

I looked around and noticed some fishes but wasn't too worried since they didn't seem to pay any attention to us what so ever. "Hey can you hear any evil thoughts Angel?" Iggy inquired.

It must be hard for him being blind especially when we are in the water! He reached out and touched Gazzy every now and then to make sure he was swimming the right way.

Whenever I see him lost like this I want to take those white coats and rip their throats out. I know I'm not a murderer and all but I can't believe they would do that to a person. Before I start seething and cursing all the white coats I should probably get a control of myself and get focused… okay I'm calm.

"Not exactly but I don't have a good feeling either," Angel replied to Iggy's question.

I looked around and noticed how funny everyone looks under water. Fang's hair was getting in his eyes more than usual and Gazzy and Iggy's usually spiky-ish hair floated around their heads. It was also deathly quiet down here. Of course there is some sound like us moving the water around us… but it really is quiet compared to how loud things get out in the rest of the world.

The deeper down we got the darker it was. I looked up and my breath caught in my throat. The water got lighter and lighter nearing the top until the water almost seemed to become golden. Fang looked over and must have seen where my gaze was because he looked up too.

'Hey Max, Fang is thinking how romantic that looks and wishes that the situation were different… ohh Fang is thinking about kissing you,' Angel giggled inside my head. I turned around and just looked at her shocked. Fang noticed and looked between Angel and me. Angel looked at him and must have said something because his eyes widened slightly and he turned away from us. Oh I wonder what she said…

"Max we have to go deeper down," Nudge turned to look at me. I followed her as she shifted and starting sweeping farther down in the water. After about ten more minutes the water seemed to get lighter. Which was a good thing since it was pretty dark and we were relying on Nudge searching for that evil feeling.

"Uh Max why is it getting lighter when we are pretty deep?" Angel asked.

"I don't know this is kind of creepy."

We swam a bit more and that's when in the distance we saw it. It looked like a building… sort of. It seemed there was a big glass dome over the building. Oh dear god.

"Is that like a huge bubble?" Nudge asked me.

"Uh…" Was my answer.

"Not exactly," Fang supplied. (Sound familiar? If it doesn't scroll up.)

"Uh oh we have company."

Out of nowhere we were surrounded by… well I don't know what they were. But they came out of nowhere. Gosh they were fast and STRONG. I struggled and punched one in the face. I kicked another in the stomach and took two and smashed their heads together… but they kept coming even after I hit them.

I looked around and saw the rest of my flock was fighting too… but they were struggling. I spun around to kick another one of those things in the head and then was spun around by one and felt a pinch. I saw that one had a syringe and had injected me with something. That's when everything went black.

I sat up and rubbed my temples. My head seemed to be throbbing and I felt itchy all over.

"Hey you're awake," a soft voice murmured. I sat up and opened my eyes slowly. I found that I was in a small, bright white room surrounded by my flock. Fang seemed to be the only one awake though. Everyone else looked asleep, but I knew that they were probably injected with the same thing I was.

"Are you okay?" Fang asked looking me over for any injuries.

"Yea except for a killer headache. Where are we?"

"I'm guessing inside that building we saw right before we were knocked out."

"Do you think it's ITEX?"

"Probably."

"Great, just great."

**I know it's short. But I'm wayyyy more fond of this chapter than the last one. I've had the idea of there being an ITEX under the ocean even when I was writing my first story "What Happens Next?" a while ago. You'll get more info later on.**

**I hope you were a little bit surprised… but I think there is something else coming up later on that will surprise you all. **


	11. Planning

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 11**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews. Yea it's short and late… but I've got stuff planned for later.**

Max POV:

A few minutes passed by as neither Fang or I spoke. The flock was still passed out so it was dead silent except for the slight buzz of the light bulbs.

"So what's the plan now boss? Stun the enemies with our good looks?" Fang tried to joke.

"Ha, ha Fang, you're just so funny." I practically growled.

"I do try." He smirked.

"Why are you acting so weird and being talkative?"

"Because things could be worse; besides you're the usually upbeat person that keeps the flock from worrying. Right now you seem really tense and down, so I thought that I might as well try to make you laugh."

Now I felt guilty… I pulled my legs up and wrapped my arms around my knees. I lowered my head and mumbled, "Thank you." Fang chuckled so I whipped my head up to glare at him. "What?"

"You apologized though you had no reason to. Don't apologize for being human. I was just saying that I was trying to get you to relax. Besides it's funny to see the great Maximum Ride apologizing."

I nodded lost in thought. A few minutes passed before I got fed up with the silence and sighed.

"Fang, how are we going to get out of this? We can't just walk out the door."

"Don't worry, we'll find a way to escape, we always do," Fang responded then leaned over to squeeze my shoulder.

"Eh," Iggy groaned as he rolled over and sat up. "Max what's going on?"

"How did you know I was awake Ig?"

"I have my ways. So where are we and what's going on? All I remember was Nudge saying something about bubbles before we were attacked and everything went black."

I had forgotten that Iggy was blind and didn't see the building. "Well we were swimming towards that strange light and we saw what looked like a huge building under some glass dome. So that's why Nudge asked if it was a bubble… and we were attacked by these things. I guess they are like flyboys except way stronger and they don't look like wolves… but sort of fishy. Now that I think about it they were actually kind of sharkish. Plus I don't think they have wings."

"So what's the plan now?"

"I guess we wait and look for a way out."

Gazzy groaned next to Iggy and sat up rubbing his head. "I'm going to shove a bomb down one of their throats. I have a killer headache," Gazzy muttered before looking around at our surroundings.

I didn't reprimand Gazzy when he said that because I basically felt the same way.

"Those things are pretty strong, I think that we all should definitely practice our fighting skills when we get out of here. Those new things are definitely stronger than flyboys or erasers." I told everyone.

"Ah don't you miss the good old days when erasers were stuck to the ground and we could just fly away. Even when they did get wings they were such awful fliers. I remember Fang calling one a 'freaking fridge with wings.' Nice insult buddy." Iggy smiled remembering.

"Thanks dude," Fang joked.

"Oh yea and when we flew sideways through the trees… they kept flying into trees." **(A/N George, George, George of the jungle, watch out for that tree! LOL sorry I'll shut up now.)**

Sorry to interrupt a brotherly moment but we need to figure out our next move. We left Total and Akila on the boat so if… when we escape we'll need to get them too. Plus there are those new shark things that will get in our way… and," I was cut off when Fang put his hand over my mouth and told me to shut up.

I glared at him and huffed. Iggy and Gazzy started discussing bombs and I was lost in my thoughts before I was interrupted by my voice.

_Hey Max, I think I might be able to help you come up with a plan but you'll have to trust me completely._

"How do I know I can trust you, when you won't tell me who are? I'm guessing that you aren't Jeb, so who are you?" One of Fang's eyebrows rose while Gazzy and Iggy just wore confused expressions.

_I'll tell you once you successfully save the world. But for now it's just better this way. _

"Fine, alright guys we have a plan to make." The boys just nodded looking confused.

_Alright the first thing that you need to do is…_

About an hour later we heard voices outside our door. By this time Angel and Nudge had woken up and joined in planning with us. Iggy frowned and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Destroyer of Snickers!"

We watched the door handle turn and someone stepped inside.

**I think you all know who it is. So yea this is kind of late… but I actually prefer reading to writing… so I usually just read your fanfics and update mine when I feel the need to.**

**Soooooo I hope you liked it… though basically nothing happened yet. Oh but I've got stuff planned. **

**Sorry if there are mistakes I didn't feel like editing this late. **


	12. The End of the World?

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 12**

**Thanks everyone for the reviews. So I hope you like it. Oh and I can't write accents… yea. **

Max POV:

We watched the door handle turn and someone stepped inside. "Ah you are steel alive." Ter Borcht sneered at us as he entered the room. Nudge gasped as her eye widened.

"Yea, we haven't gotten tired of the living thing. Maybe after another 70 years we will be. I see that you are 'steel' alive too. What a shame."

"Quiet! I vill not take dis disrespekt!"

"And your point is?"

"Quiet! Guards take dem to de conference rum now!"

Out of nowhere those shark things came and grabbed each of us. We of course struggled but in vain since we each had two on each arm. I turned and gave Gazzy a pointed look. He nodded slightly and nudged Iggy with his foot. Iggy turned towards Gazzy and slightly nodded also.

Here we go!

They walked us through hallways, and hallways… and more hallways. Finally we were led coughcoughdraggedcough into a large white room. One wall was made completely of glass and there was a nice view of the ocean I will admit. One of the other walls was covered completely in screens. Déjà vu! That sounds kind of familiar.

The sharkies dumped us and walked over to one side of the room and stood straight and still. They kind of remind me of the people with the funny hats in England.

I felt an odd urge to go make funny faces at one of them but resisted. Ahhh self control! A magical thing, I must say.

I heard heels clacking outside the door before it flew open and a woman entered, a very blonde woman who resembles me. "Nice crib," I sneered at her knowing it would annoy her. Hey I don't like this woman so yes I'm going to be a little rude.

"I see you are as vulgar as ever Maximum Ride. Do get comfortable you're going to be here a couple of hours before you are retired." She sneered back.

"Ah the lovely term retired. It makes me think of old people quitting their jobs and baking cookies or playing golf all day. Not of innocent children being killed in cold blood. But whatever vocab floats your boat." She was getting irritated I could tell.

"Since you are being killed today anyways I thought that before you died I could let you realize what a true failure you are. I know you consider yourself somewhat of a super hero and planned on 'saving the world.' Well my dear you have failed. I'm sure you've heard of the by half plan. Am I correct in assuming this?"

"Am I correct in assuming you are a malicious phycho who wasn't hugged enough as a child?"

"Enough with your attitude!" She was practically foaming at the mouth. Do I know how to get under her skin or do I know how to get under her skin? I really can be annoying when I try to be, if I may say so myself.

"You see the world is full of diseased and stupid people who do not deserve to inhabit our planet. I am cleansing the earth from these mistakes and starting over. These idiotic morons don't understand a thing!" She exclaimed seeming a bit too happy while talking about killing people.

"You're being a bit redundant."

"What?" The director snapped.

"Well you said idiotic morons… which is the same thing. You could say these morons… or these idiots… or idiotic people. But idiotic morons seems redundant. See even I know this and I've never gone to school for longer than a month or two."

"SHUT UP!" She practically screeched. What a banshee. "Listen to me. We are going to destroy this planet and start over! Your precious world will exsist no longer. All you have worked for will all be in vain! You have failed!"

I stood up and moved closer to her. A few of the shark people shifted and moved their eyes to me. I made sure not to get too close when I looked at her.

"If you kill everyone you won't have a world to control Sherlock!"

"Who said we are going to kill all the people? My plan really is ingenius. We've build a large city of sorts under the sea floor. Now it isn't really too deep but about a mile and a half under the crust. In that city we will take doctors, teachers, carpenters, and anyone who can help us rebuild this planet. We will take those worthy of living down there and destroy the rest of the planet's people. We will take everything we need to start over. And then use nuclear bombs to rid the planet of the rest of you vermin," she practically spit!

"You can't do that!"

"Oh yes I can, and I will! You see at first we tried to make a superior race of humans to make up a superior army to keep the people in line. As you can see, we failed at that because all of you are wretched failures. That's why we originally created you. But now you aren't needed. We have succeeded finally." She waved an arm to the sharkies on the other side of the room.

"These experiments will be our soldiers and keep everyone under our control."

"Alright so you kill everyone and live in a dark city for the rest of your lives? Good plan. People don't need things like fresh clean air… the sun or anything natural!"

"Didn't you hear me you twit! We will rebuild the world. After a couple years once the dust has died down and the air is safe to breathe again we will surface and start over. It will be better than today! People now are idiotic and polluting the planet and practically committing slow suicide. Well we are putting a stop to this."

"So you want to stop pollution? Hey that's my job." Whoa wait a sec does she actually want to do something good?

"Well of course I do! I can't rule a world if everyone who I want to live dies! Now you know how your lovely little planet will be cleansed of all the mistakes. You have failed and will die knowing you are nothing but a failure!" I heard Fang growl behind me. Oh duh she isn't trying to do something good… she is just a greedy physcho.

"At first when we realized you were failures we thought that we could convince you somehow to join us. Then when that didn't work we thought we may as well sell you as weapons. The Chinese were very interested… but because of your actions they feel you would be more of a liability than advantage. Now you die!" The director practically cackled an evil laugh.

"You can't do this, people won't let you!"

"Oh but there you are mistaken. I can and I will kill everyone on this planet that isn't worthy. I have important people who are part of this plan. We will hold a conference with them in an hour actually. No one will stop me from carrying out this plan! More than half the population will be destroyed… and you can't stop me!"

**Dun dun dun! Now what? Kind of short… but it's just basically the evil plan… yea well how will Max and gang save the world now? **

**Anyways I hope you were a little surprised about that.**

**Remember how I said that I got an idea from "The City of Ember" and was going to use an idea from that? Well I did.**

**Sooooooo hit the little bluish purple button and tell me what you think.**

**Oh and I know there are mistakes I blame that on the fact that I went to the doctor today and got four shots. Two in each arm… so I feel kind of drowsy. Anyways I'll shut up now and just say bye-bye. **


	13. Longest Chapter I've EVER Written

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 13**

**MY LONGEST CHAPTER EVER!**

**I am so exhausted after this. **

**Thanks everyone for the reviews. People have been complaining about the lack of FAX. And I don't blame them! The FAX has been gone. So here you go! I didn't plan to have this here at all! Like at all at all! But I don't think and my fingers just fly over the keyboard and FAX came I guess. Anyways I realized there is hardly any Fang POV's in here! Sooo I decided to add some. Oh and I realize what I've been doing wrong… I try to write during the day but forget that. I'm apparently at my best in the middle of the night/early morning!**

**I also would have uploaded this sooner but my computer wasn't working! My touchpad wouldn't work. So I had to dig up a mouse from somewhere. But it's okay now… I hope. I'll shut up now.**

Fang POV:

So we're back in this little white room killing time until this stupid conference thing starts. After the she-devil cackled like a maniac and said that she will destroy the world she sent us off to our "room." Like a punished child; that isn't cool at all.

Oh and the meeting was pushed back by four hours. Apparently there was some issue with some dude in Austria and some lady in Colombia. Anyways apparently they were pretty up there in the evil crazies list and the meeting just couldn't go on without them. Whatever, that gave us more time for what we were planning.

"Hey Max are you sure there aren't any cameras in here?" Nudge asked for the 15th time. Yes I am counting.

"Well not a hundred percent, but we looked for some and couldn't find any. It's a chance that we've got to take. Besides I'm pretty sure if they heard us talking about their downfall they would separate us. So I'm sure we're in the clear kid," Max reassured Nudge. Nudge smiled back at Max.

She really is a mother figure to them. She's so strong and such a good leader, but a wonderful mother at the same time. I've seen Max in all kind's of situations. Fighting erasers, annoying the Director, comforting Angel after a nightmare, comforting Iggy when he figured out his parents were such creeps, ruffling Gasman's hair, teasing Total, Kissing that wiener Sam back in Virginia, crying at Ari's funeral, pretending to listen to Nudge talk, and giving me silent looks and completely reading my mind. Whatever the situation is, she adapts to it so well… she's perfect. I sighed softly looking over at Max who was messing with Gazzy and making him laugh while Iggy threatened to post on my blog that she's single and looking for her soul-mate if she didn't stop messing with his partner in crime.

Max laughed and smiled. Oh God she has the most amazing laugh in the world. My whole day brightens after hearing it. Max looked over at me and our eyes made contact. I didn't look away and she didn't either. We just stayed frozen staring at each other. I tried to read her expression but I didn't understand the look she was giving me. After a few minutes Max seemed to get a hold of her self and tore her gaze from mine. I saw red slowly creep up her face until she was as red as a tomato. I love how she blushes.

Hope flared within me. I know she likes me. I actually kind of find it obvious and so does the flock. She seems to be the only clueless one. If she didn't like me she wouldn't kiss me back when I kissed her, or give me the looks she gives me. I know she likes me… but what I need to know is if she loves me like I love her.

'She does love you Fang, the same way that you love her. The only problem is that she is scared of getting hurt. She is also afraid that if things don't work out and you two break up the flock will suffer. The thing she is afraid of the most is that you two might break up and you'll leave. She couldn't handle that Fang, so she would rather have you as her best friend than lose you by pursuing a romantic relationship.'

Angel how do you know this?

'I read her mind silly. Sometimes she doesn't really notice that I can hear her thoughts… I really wasn't even trying to read her mind. Her thoughts kind of attacked me sort of. That happens a lot when she is thinking about something important. Fang I know that you would NEVER leave her again right?'

I'd never leave her. I care about her too much.

'She feels the same way. Fang you need to reassure her that you'll always be there. I know you will, but she has to know. You might also want to tell her that the whole flock is for you two getting together. We once had a meeting while you and Max were both gone. We want you two to be happy.'

You are one smart cookie Angel. I think that you act much too mature for your age. I'm so sorry that you had to grow up before you should have had to.

'I know Fang. ALL of us grew up before our time. Besides I'm lucky that I have you and Max around to take care of me; of all of us.'

I felt my heart swell as I was engulfed in emotions.

Angel giggled in my mind and said, 'I love you too. Now go get your girl.'

Angel scampered off to the other side of the room from where I was to go play with Nudge. Nudge started to braid Angel's hair while Gazzy and Iggy were preoccupied making bombs.

I felt Max sit down next to me but was still silent. I tried to get my thoughts in order, it was now or never. If I didn't do it now I would lose my nerve.

"What's wrong Fang? You're being really quiet lately, even for you. You seem to be lost in your thoughts, Fang what's wrong?" Max peered up at me looking concerned.

"Listen Max we need to talk," Max gave a nervous laugh, "about us," I added and I saw panic flare in her eyes. Wow great encouragement when I'm about to pour my heart out!

"This isn't the time or the place," she whisper yelled. No one seemed to notice though because Nudge was singing some song at full force.

"It's never the time or place for you Max and you know it! It's either now or never. You know that we might not make it out of here."

"Don't talk like that!"

"But it's the truth and you know it. I hope that we can make it out of here but there IS a chance that we might not. So I want you to know how I feel!" I whisper yelled right back at her.

I swallowed and took the dive. I never would have done this before, this isn't my style. But she doesn't seem to be getting it any other way.

Max POV:

Why is Fang bringing this up right now? Doesn't he realize why we can't be more than friends?

"I love you," Fang muttered before looking into my eyes.

"I really don't see the need for this conversation Fang. I mean seriously what do you want from me? This isn't the right time. We should be focusing on saving the planet, you know billions of lives." I rambled on and on.

I saw hurt flash in his eyes as Fang lowered his head down and sort of just shook it in disbelief.

"Besides you shouldn't talk about us dying its not good… wait a second what did you say?" Stop. Rewind. What? Did Fang say… no. No he couldn't have said THAT.

"Great now I'm imaging things. For a moment I thought you said…" I hesitated not wanting to embarrass myself.

Fang's head went up and I was looking in his eyes again. I saw confusion in them. "I did say what you thought I said." I felt a dull roar and all of a sudden everything disappeared, except Fang and my. It was just me and him, and his chocolate brown eyes. **(Fang sounds like he has yummy eyes. LOL jk. Back to the story!) **I heard my heart beating in my chest double time, heck forget that. More like triple time really!

"What…" My voice died off as I saw a slight smile cross his face.

"Really Max you aren't quite as smart as you come off as. You really are clueless. I Fang no middle or last name love you Maximum no middle name Ride, and not as a sister or best friend. I have for a while and everyone can tell… except for you. Even Brigid said she could tell from the first time she saw us together."

"What?" I asked stunned. I was so oblivious that I didn't notice that the entire flock was watching us. They of course weren't stupid and kept their mouths shut as to not break me from my trance. I trained them well… too well actually.

"Listen just be quiet and let me get through this because if I don't say it now I never will. Max you are so important to me and I really do like you. And I know you like me too."

The roar grew louder and louder in my ears. I opened my mouth to interrupt him but Fang silenced me by placing a finger on my mouth.

"Just listen! I know you like me too and I know why you are hesitant about starting a relationship with me Max. I know you're worried about the flock getting hurt if we get together and it doesn't work out." I saw Fang swallow; his eyes never leaving my face for a second.

"But I would never let that happen and you wouldn't either. I want you to know I'm not going anywhere. I told you that I'm never going to leave and I won't. Ever! Even if things don't work out I want you to know that I will ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS be there for you. No matter what, I'm there." I trembled a bit. Everything that I wanted Fang to say, everything that I dreamed of, he was offering to me.

"You're the most perfect person I've ever met. I love everything about you. From your sarcastic wit to your freckles, from the way you beat up erasers to the way you comfort Angel after she's had a nightmare." The roar was growing, it was deafening.

Fang POV:

"The flock wants us to be together too! They even had a meeting about it before and they want us to be happy. They understand that we wouldn't allow our relationship to come in the way of us being a family. It would only bring us all closer together I think." My voice rose a bit at that part.

I couldn't stop talking.

Mental sewage was bursting out of me and I couldn't stop talking. Like a burst pipe there was no stopping me. I tried to shut up but I couldn't. It's like I lost control of my mouth and that has never happened before. I've never talked so much in my life. I was laying it all out there until I was left emotionally bare.

"Don't worry about me hurting you Max…" My voice lowered as I gently grabbed one of her hands. She didn't stop me. She just kept looking at me with those wide eyes. A deer caught in headlights.

"I know this is abrupt and a lot to take in, but I need you to know that I would never hurt you. You mean too much to me to risk losing you. I wouldn't care if the world was ending if I was by your side. You bring out the best in me. You've been there through everything and I can't live without you Max. I know we're fourteen and it's not like I'm asking you to marry me. I just want you to know that I love you with all my heart." I finished and hoped, prayed to god that she felt the same way.

I needed her to say she felt the same way! That's when the flock intervened.

Max POV:

He loves me, he loves ME. The deafening roar was so loud now I couldn't think; I couldn't grasp my own feelings. What? The flock had a meeting about US?

When was this? What do I say? What do I do? I don't know!

"He's right you know. We want you to be happy. We can tell how you two feel about each other and I agree that it would only bring us closer together. The dude is so whopped." Iggy butted into my thoughts.

"He's right Max. We love you two, and know that you two love us too. **(So many 2's. Hehe.) **But you also have to think about yourselves and what you want. And I think you want each other." Iggy snorted and Nudge elbowed him. "In a non-gross way I mean." She added.

"Max go for it, you like him, he likes you. EVERYONE can tell. We're happy for you two." Gasman piped up.

"Max, you and Fang are like our parents. I've read both your minds and he wasn't lying about anything he said. He meant every single word of it. He won't ever leave you so all your worries have been… ne… nega…negated."

"Have you been reading the dictionary?" Iggy inquired of Angel.

"No I heard someone use it and looked it up… I thought it sounded cool. "Anyways back to you Max… we all want you to get together so you can't use us as an excuse anymore." **(Sorry that just made me laugh so I had to throw it in!)**

The world seemed to be spinning. I couldn't think I could barely breathe. My heart was pounding so much I was surprised it didn't pound its way out of my chest.

"Think… I need to think. Process… process… I need to process… thoughts… too many thoughts." I rubbed my head making no sense at all.

_Max he really does love you. I know you love him too. So just tell the boy how you feel so that you can focus on saving the world and then you can have your happily ever after!_

"Fang… I… I … I need time to think."

Fang looked a bit crest fallen but nodded slowly getting up and walking across the room and sitting down over there looking off into space.

Gasman and Iggy silently went back to making bombs and Nudge and Angel now subdued sat quietly watching the boys.

Thoughts were swimming through my mind… I tried to get my thoughts in order and simplify everything he told me.

So he loves me… and he will always be there. There goes my fear of abandonment excuse. The flock wants us to be together and he swears that our relationship won't affect the flock in a negative way… there goes the "for the flock" excuse too. He loves me so there goes the he doesn't feel the same way excuse. He was never into Brigid and they were actually just friends and weren't into each other, there goes the he's a flirt excuse. Why does it seem like I'm running out of excuses?

As I tried to get my thoughts into order and out of turmoil time ticked by slowly.

I swear those were the slowest four hours of my life.

Fang POV:

There I spilled my feelings. I pulled my heart out and gave it to her on a silver platter and stepped back to do with it as she wished. And I got no response. She stared off into space for the next four hours and didn't move.

I swear those were the slowest four hours of my life.

!!

**(Four hours later.)**

Max POV

I just came to a conclusion and was about to stand up and talk to Fang when I heard heels clacking outside. I looked at Gazzy and Iggy in the corner stuffing bombs on their person… you don't want to know the places they put those things.

"Gazzy, Iggy you ready?" I quickly asked as the clacking came closer.

"Yup."

The Director stepped inside. "Now it's time that you see my plan put to action and the end of the world." As she finished Sharkies came in and grabbed us.

Let the games begin!

We were lead back to the conference room except now the zillions of screens were filled with faces; déjà vu much?

"Let the meeting begin." The Director said sounding very confident. As she started in the speech she gave earlier, except with way too much boring info and less emotions I looked around the room again. I saw that on the table there was a laptop and some papers.

Next to them there was a figurine of a horse. I looked more closely and saw it was a unicorn with a horn on its forehead. Wow how odd is that?

I didn't expect someone as cold and ruthless as the Director to have something as delicate as a unicorn figurine. Life is full of surprises as I've already seen today.

"Why are the bird-children still alive?" A fat man with a strong Russian accent asked.

"Yes, why are they alive? I heard that your Uber-Director was going to take care of them." Another fat man said. This one looked Greek? No Italian actually. I looked more closely and almost laughed. He looked like someone out of The Godfather! He had a ring on each finger and was puffing on a cigar. He even had a cat in his lap that he was petting! That is too funny! See I can find humor even in depressing situations.

I looked over at Fang and hoped he would look my way. After a second he did and I smiled mouthing the words, "The Godfather much?" and tilting my head towards the screen with the man who had spoken.

Fang looked confused for a second. For the fact that I was acting normal with him or that he didn't understand me. I don't know which one but after a second or two he smiled at me. I felt relief wash over me that I hadn't ruined anything.

"Ah yes the Uber-director, he failed. But these experiments will be retired later today. I thought it would be interesting for them to see how they failed and the end of the world as they know it. A sort of sending off," She smiled a tight fake smile.

A few people gave small chuckles at her little not funny joke. A woman with an accent I couldn't place spoke up, "May we see this underground city of yours?"

"You want to see it?" The Director looked a bit uneasy at first. There was a strong amount of agreement from the other people on the screens.

"Alright then, I believe this can be arranged," she muttered.

"Now," another woman added.

"Why now?" The Director sputtered obviously annoyed at the woman's lack of respect.

"Because we are all busy and what time better than the present?" I almost jumped up and down in excitement but tried to keep a bored expression on. I looked at the rest of my flock and they all looked bored too. I looked down at Gazzy and he smiled up and me reading my mind almost perfectly.

The Director had played almost completely into my hand.

The Director had brought some Sharkies to "escort" us down the hallways and steps to the cavern/underground city. She was now on her laptop using a smaller webcam. The whole screen was covered with the tiny faces of her associates. Her assistant was holding the laptop pointing it towards the director as she spoke.

As we walked Iggy and Gazzy very subtly left teeny but powerful bombs in the shadows. They were very discreet. Even though I knew what they were doing and was watching them, and especially their hands I didn't see them place a single bomb.

I looked at Gasman but he gave me a slight smile assuring me that they were leaving bombs. Did I train them well or did I train them well?

We walked for a while listening to the droning of the Director as she explained the structure of the city and the plans for it; basically a bunch of crap that I didn't care about really.

After a while we were led down a long series of steps. Apparently there was an elevator but there were so many of us if you counted the Sharkies that we would have to make many trips. So we went down the stairs the good old fashioned way.

Nudge started singing parts of a song, "Now I've got a confession ha, ha, ha!" The Director glared over at her but Nudge gave her an innocent look.

As the Director continued explaining her plan I heard a man speak up, "It doesn't seem very solid in my opinion." I looked over at the Director and saw her frown for a second before she gave a wild smile and chuckled. To me it sounded a bit like she was losing it.

"Of course the plan is solid. We have already started making a list of the people who will survive. All of you and your families are at the top of the list. We will be ready to start collecting the people in a week," she smiled.

Nudge kept singing, "I ain't complaining. We all wanna be famous." I saw the Director twitch and I winked at Nudge. She stopped singing and it seemed like she would say a random line at random times.

"Are you sure you aren't allowing your emotions to rule you?" A stout man in a hot pink business suit asked in a high voice. He sounded very country which was an odd combination with his high voice.

"Of course not, I have planned this for years and there are no flaws." The Director practically ground out.

"When I grow up I want to be famous. I want to be a star. I want to be in movies. When I grow up I want to see the world, drive nice cars, I wanna have groupies."

The Director whirled around and screeched, "STOP THAT!" She then smoothed her business suit and turned towards the camera again and smiled taking a deep breath. I gave Nudge a hive five behind the Directors back. I saw a few people on the laptop screen chuckle.

We finally reached the bottom of the stairs and proceeded to a large door. The Director punched in a code and the doors slid open. We were led into the room and I gasped. It looked like a city. There were no cars, or telephone poles or anything like that. But it was basically a small city. It didn't look all high tech but it still was impressive. There of course was a lack of trees.

"How will the people communicate, or work? How will they eat or buy what they need." A woman asked.

"People will be given specific jobs and there will be buses that run off of water so we won't run out of fuel. A care packet will be delivered every week to each family with their food and other necessities. Of course you and your families will be better off." The Director once again gave her fake smile.

I looked around and couldn't see the end of the city. This must have taken years and years to build. Say about fourteen years of planning?

The Director continued on talking as she walked us down streets. I knew that Iggy and Gazzy were leaving bombs here and there. When we were planning we were worried the underground city not being destroyed. It seems the Director played right into our hands. I find it quite funny really. She only allowed us to come so we could die knowing what failures we were, when she was just ensuring that we wouldn't fail.

Fang POV:

The Director continued leading us around her stupid city for a bit longer before we turned around and walked back the way we came. She continued with her rant and was practically congratulating herself on her great idea. This woman has an ego the size of Alaska. Scratch that she has an ego the size of Russia.

I figured that the Sharkies weren't really that smart or observant since they didn't see Iggy or Gasman planting bombs around. The Director I think has just lost her mind and is so caught up in her plan that she has lost all common sense and logic. Did she really think she could get away with this?

We eventually found our way back into the conference room as she continued to talk and talk. Will she ever shut up? She sat down in a chair as she switched back to the wall covered in screens.

One woman spoke up and asked if we "experiments" could talk. Max rolled her eyes as Iggy and Gasman burst out laughing.

"Yes we actually can talk. We are perfectly able to process information and then respond without our brain's exploding." Max smiled cheekily. Goodness I love the way she does that while acting completely nonchalant.

The Director spun around and glared at Max. "So Maximum, do you admit defeat? Do you see the truth?"

Max glared right back at the director and said in her signature steely voice, "Fine you win. Yes I admit defeat. But you're still a wretched old witch who needs to be put in a mental institution!" A few people on the screens gaped at Max's lack of respect while the Director just smiled in satisfaction at Max admitting defeat brushing off the insult.

Like my Max would ever admit defeat. I must say Max could have a career as an actress one of these days.

**Okay I'm stopping here because I realized that if I went by the outline I made this story would be over soon. Sooo I'm sort of dragging it out. I hope you don't mind. Oh and this was a PAIN to edit. And I know that I skipped some mistakes. Anyways I demand reviews right now because this took me hours, and I got a headache. Sooooo please tell me what you think. I don't care if you hate it; tell me that you hate it. This is a bit different from my normal writing so tell me what you think. This is seriously like three or four of my normal chapters put together. Thanks for reading **


	14. Unclear

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 14**

**Guess what? I got over 104 reviews! You all are so awesome! It's my personal goal to get to 100 reviews for each fanfic that isn't a one-shot. So thanks you just made my day!**

**Yes this is short… but also very "OMG" at the end. Or at least I like to think so.**

Fang POV:

"I will contact you all again as soon as everything is ready." Marian Janssen reached over pushed a button on her computer and all the screens shut off. She turned towards the Sharkies and ordered them to leave the room and not come back until she called for them.

Is she stupid? Why would she send all her protection out of the room? Maybe she really did believe Max when Max admitted defeat. How dense is this lady? It's kind of sad; she could have done a lot of good.

"So Maximum, what do you think of my little plan?" The Director asked as she turned to max.

"I think that you're crazy and have lost every single bit of morality that you might have possessed. I don't think that you have a heart at all. Don't you realize how many innocent people are going to die?"

"They are unworthy of life. They are already destroying this planet; I am just speeding up the process."

"You have got to be kidding me! There are children, and babies out there. They aren't polluting the planet. There are people out there that are trying to help. Some recycle, and do everything that they can. You'll be killing those people too.

"Everyone must make sacrifices!"

"I don't see you making sacrifices!" Max was getting angry now.

"Don't you dare act like you know me and all that I have sacrificed! You think you know what this life is like? I've been around longer than the average person and let me tell you, this world is a horrible place. People don't appreciate what they have, they are cruel and there is such injustice in the world."

"Injustice! Injustice! So you think that you are just! Let me tell you something lady. Do you think that it's fair that I haven't had, and never will have a normal childhood? Is it fair that I have to fight for my life everyday?" I knew that Max was getting angry.

"Is it fair that I have to be a mother to these kids when I'm just a kid myself? Is it fair that I will never know what it's like to live a normal life? Is it fair that Iggy got his sight stolen from him? Is it fair that they will never know who their parents are? Is it fair that we grew up in dog crates? Is it fair that we get experiments performed on us like we are lab rats? We are human beings, we feel pain, and we have thoughts! Is it fair?" Max was really wound up now.

"No it's not. You are actually the cause of what we've been through. Not all the blame falls on you. There are others, but you are the ringleader and you are to blame just as much as the people who actually did the experiments. You talk about knowing injustice, you don't know anything!" Max's voice got louder and louder with each word she said until she was practically screaming.

The Director snapped. She slapped Max. Max looked surprised but then she looked angry; she slapped the Director back. Of course Max was stronger so the Director's cheek turned dark red.

Max POV:

Now when I think about what happened I can't really remember anything clearly. It's all blurry and clouded over. I just remember getting so angry and yelling at her. Then she slapped me and I slapped her. She tugged on my hair and scratched me with her long nails.

I remember punching her and I remember a knife coming out of nowhere. I remember being pushed out of the way and seeing the long knife go inside Fang. I remember seeing Fang fall over and clutch his stomach. I remember seeing Iggy grab Fang.

Then I saw red. I can't remember much after that. But Nudge quietly told me that I punched her so hard that she stumbled backwards and fell onto the table. On the table was that little Unicorn statue; when she fell backwards the horn went straight through her heart. Nudge reassures me that it was a freak accident and that I didn't do it on purpose. I just don't know…

**So what do you think? Review and you'll see what happens next.**

**Disclaimer: I didn't come up with the idea of the Director falling backwards onto the table and a statue of a unicorn going through her heart. I got the idea from the TV series Bones and switched things around a little bit. **


	15. Faker

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 15**

**You all are so awesome when it comes to reviews. I just posted the chapter and seriously two minutes later I'm starting to get reviews. So thank you for that! That last chapter got more reviews than any other chapter!**

**Anyways my story will be coming to an end soon… I don't know how many chapters are left… around two or three I'm guessing. **

Max POV:

My eyes widened when I looked at the Director sprawled on top of her desk. My heart stopped as I realized that I was the reason why she died. Nudge grabbed me and made me look away. I killed someone… was I a murderer now?

"Max it's not your fault you didn't mean to kill her. She hit you first, besides you know that it was either her or billions of other innocent people. And if you think about it she is really old anyways. She did hurt Fang first."

"Fang!" I whirled around fell to the floor next to him. He looked so pale… please God don't let him be… "Fang wake up. Come on you can't die now… please Fang, please you can't die. What would I do without you… you can't leave me. Remember how after the flock was reunited you told me that you would never leave me again. Don't you dare break that promise! You can't leave me now." The room was quiet except for my sobs. I didn't even realize that I was crying until I saw tears drop onto Fang's face.

"Please Fang…" I lowered my head until my forehead was resting again his… "I love you, you can't die now," I whispered.

"I've waited way too long to hear that, you wait until you think I'm dead to tell me. That figures. I guess I've got to keep my promise now," A raspy voice broke into my thoughts.

"Fang," I fell back staring at him in shock as he sat up, "you faker! You faked being dead! If you weren't hurt I would throttle you!" I yelled wiping away my tears in embarrassment.

"Well I wanted to see what you would do. Now can someone please get this thing out of me," he gestured to his stomach and that's when I realized that the knife was still in his stomach and that Fang was bleeding!"

"Fang I'm so glad that you're okay, but where did she get a knife from?" Nudge actually kept her talking down to a sentence. I guess Fang scared all of us.

Iggy pushed me out of the way a bit rudely but I'm excusing him this time. While I had been crying my eyes out Iggy had made some bandages out of a lab coat. I looked behind me and saw a coat rack in a corner of the room with some coats on it.

Iggy reached down and pulled the knife out. Fang hissed in pain but showed no other sign that he was hurting. Iggy thrust the knife at me to hold while he tried to bandage Fang up and stop the bleeding.

"Dude when we get back on the ship we'll get Brigid to stitch you up but this will have to do for now. We have to hurry before someone comes in.

I looked down at my hand and noticed that I was holding a letter opener. One of those fancy sharp ones, it looks kind of like a knife and I guess is one sort of. "Nudge I think this is a letter opener actually."

"She must have grabbed it from under some papers or something," Angel spoke up.

"So any idea on how we're going to get out of here? With Fang hurt we can't just go down some hallways and jump out a window like we usually do." I looked over at Fang and blushed thinking about what a girl I was crying over him and telling him I loved him.

"I have an idea!" Gazzy jumped up pointing towards the wall with the windows. I still have some bombs left. I could take one of the smaller ones and blow up that window. We'd still be in the dome thing but we could fly out of here and then throw another bomb at the dome and make a small hole where we can get out. We all still have our wet suit things and little breathing things. Iggy and Max can help Fang swim until we reach the boat!" Gasman rushed out looking excited.

Iggy cocked his head to the side and though for a second before saying in awe, "Simple, a bit crude, but it sounds very effective. I guess we have a plan!"

"Alright," I gave my consent. I watched Iggy as he finished bandaging Fang up. Fang winced every now and then but whenever he saw me looking worried he gave me a small smile. Iggy helped him up and Fang hobbled over to me and wrapped an arm around me trying to stay standing.

Iggy and Gasman stood together talking in hushed tones before nodding. Iggy stepped back. Gasman looked at us, "We better hurry. The explosion will probably get a lot of attention." The Gasman was about to blow up the wall when I suddenly thought of something.

"WAIT!" I commanded. Everyone looked at me a little funny knowing we didn't have much time left. "Angel can you sense if any experiments are in the building?" Angel closed her eyes and was quiet for a minute.

"There are a handful of experiments but they are all already dying. They wouldn't make it," Angel looked up at me tears in her eyes.

I gave her a reassuring smile and nodded towards the Gasman again. Everyone put their breathing devices in their mouths and stepped back. Gazzy threw the bomb and the glass windows shattered.

We all snapped our wings out and jumped out the window flapping, flying over the rest of the buildings and reaching the glass dome. I saw some people below us start to shout and point up at us. We didn't have much time left before those Sharkies would come for us.

This time Iggy threw a bomb but the dome didn't break. Just when I was going to start panicking Iggy threw three more bombs at the dome. The glass shattered in a spot and water rushed in. Everyone tried to pull themselves out of the hole and into the ocean.

I looked over at Fang flapping his wings with a pained expression on his face. Everyone was through except Fang and me. I shoved him towards the hole and he gave me an exasperated look before he pulled himself out and into the water. I quickly followed suit and we all started swimming. Iggy was on one side of Fang helping him along.

I looked back and saw people rushing out of the buildings freaking out about the water pouring in. Nudge took the lead and we swam as quickly as possible. Half way back I shooed Iggy away and took over helping Fang along.

Those next few minutes were a blur; I didn't even look at my surroundings. Now that I was sure that Fang would make it the panic subsided and I had an opportunity to think. I killed someone today… a person. Not an eraser, or flyboy, but a real human being.

"Max I know what you're thinking and it's not your fault," Fang said while concentrating on keeping pace with the rest of the flock.

We were almost at the surface when we stopped for a bit. We stayed in place for a while trying to get our bodies back to normal. When we finally broke through the surface we saw the ship. We swam over to it and Iggy and I flew Fang up onto the deck.

"Thank god we're alive," Nudge sighed before falling onto her back taking a deep breath and throwing her breathing device across the deck. Brigid rushed out and ran towards us. "Thank god you're all okay," she started to say before she saw the blood stained bandage around Fang's stomach.

"Oh goodness Fang, come on let's fix you up," She then started hurrying around trying to get her supplies together. We all trudged down stairs and into the conference room.

We all collapsed in chairs trying to get a grip on reality.

**Okay I'm stopping there because I'm just lazy that way. **

**You all thought I was going to let Fang die. As if! I couldn't do that to him or Max. I just needed him to get hurt so Max would finally admit her feelings… besides it made the last chapter more dramatic. Yea they kind of escaped easily… but ohhh well my world is special. Besides they've been through too much already. **


	16. And?

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 16**

**You all are so awesome when it comes to reviews, seriously! I can't believe that I go so many for that last chapter.**

**Sorry about this late update, I didn't realize that I haven't updated in a week… and it's almost done. So I've just been lazy…**

Max POV:

"So are we going to blow that place up or what?" Iggy asked.

"Of course, Iggy go on ahead."

As Brigid came in to tend to Fang's wounds Nudge spoke up, "Can we please change out of these things?" I nodded.

"Okay, first let me blow up the evil building." Iggy pulled a strange button looking thing out of … well somewhere. He grinned then pushed it.

At first nothing happened, then after a moment or two the ship rocked tipped a little to the side then righted it self.

"That's it?" I asked.

"Excuse me but that just blew the underwater headquarters up, and we are finally free of those evil psychos who have been trying to kill us for our lives!" Iggy muttered darkly.

"Good job Iggy!" Nudge piped up feeling bad for him.

"I feel bad." Gazzy said randomly.

"What's wrong? Do you feel sick? Are you hurt?" I rushed out as I ran over to him checking him over.

"No not like that. I know that those people were bad… but they probably had families and stuff. We killed those people." Oh he was feeling remorse.

"Gazzy, honey I know how you're feeling. I feel the same way, but honey it was either them or billions of other innocent people… we had to do it." I enveloped Gasman in a hug and squeezed. Gazzy nodded and took a deep breath trying to act grown up.

"Well while Fang gets fixed up, let's go change." The rest of the flock filed out the door quietly and I was about to follow when I remembered something. "Brigid?"

"Yes Max?" She turned to me.

"Thanks for everything; we probably wouldn't have been able to do this without you.

"I didn't really do anything Max."

"You actually did…" I turned and went to change.

Fang POV:

Max turned around and left the room. Huh… that was unexpected.

"So how do things stand with you two? Did you tell her how you feel?" Brigid asked me as she was stitching up my wound. I winced slightly at the pain so I almost missed her question.

"Oh um yea I told her."

"And?" She rolled her eyes at me.

"And what?" I knew I was being difficult but it's kind of amusing to annoy people.

"And what did she say?"

"Well at first she was really surprised and she said she needed time to think. Well then later when she thought I died…"

"What?" she interrupted.

"Well I didn't really die, obviously. Anyways I faked dying, so she told me she felt the same way and was crying. Then when she figured out I was okay."

"Fang that is sooo cheesy!"

"Cheesy, but effective."

"If I were her I would have hit you. Well you're lucky because the knife missed everything important… though barely. I don't think you lost too much blood either. You lost some but I think you'll be alright as long as you stay in bed."

"She wanted to hit me but since I was already bleeding I don't think she wanted to risk it. Though she probably will get back at me later, how long do I have to stay in bed?"

"Until we get back to Greenland. Since you finished your mission though, you all can still hang out here for a bit right? It's kind of nice to be surrounded by you all," Brigid continued.

"Well you better go on to bed now. Do you need help?"

"No I've got it."

Max POV:

The whole flock spent the rest of the day in Fang's room keeping him company. We were all so happy that we were finally free to do what we wanted, that we can live normal lives. Angel and Gazzy said that they didn't want to look for their parents. Iggy of course said that he didn't want to go back to his parents. Nudge just kept looking at the floor. We all knew how much she wanted to live with her parents. But then she looked up and said that we were her family and she wanted us to all stay together. Everyone agreed that we would start house hunting when we got back to the states.

The flock decided to go to sleep and I bid them a goodnight but I stayed tidying up the mess that the flock left. As I was tidying up I felt Fang grab my arm and pull me on the bed so I was sitting next to him.

"You don't have to fake clean as an excuse to spend time with me you know," Fang grinned.

"Someone thinks highly of themselves now don't they?"

"Yep," he was still grinning.

I got comfortable sitting next to him and sat there thinking in silence. But it wasn't an awkward silence like I feared, but a comfortable one.

"Max."

"Hmm?"

"What are we?"

"Ummm Avian American?"

"No seriously Max. I mean me and you. So are we a couple?" He looked embarrassed and wouldn't look at me.

"Awww is someone embarrassed?"

"Seriously Max."

"Yea I guess we are…"

"We are?"

"Yea but don't you dare get all mushy on me, or I'll kill you."

"Me, mushy? I don't think so."

Fang put his arm around my shoulders and I snuggled into his side. "So this isn't mushy?" I asked.

"No this is being affectionate."

I laughed and Fang's mouth twitched up in a smile.

"I didn't expect you to be so cool with this." Fang told me.

"Sooo I didn't meet your expectations?"

"Nope you surpassed them."

**Fluffy and pointless yes. But I found it cute. So I think two more chapters to go… I think.**


	17. Surprise!

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Chapter 17**

**THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS! I was shocked when I saw that I had over 170 reviews! That's more than I got for my first story so I'm really happy.**

**One chapter to go! This is short I know…**

Max POV:

"Hey I just remembered something."

Fang turned towards me, "What?"

"I forgot to give you something, so close your eyes." Fang grinned and closed his eyes. I pulled my arm back and punched him in the arm, hard.

"Hey! What was that for?" He grumbled opening his eyes and rubbing his arm.

"For making me think you were dead! That wasn't funny!"

"Well I wanted to see what you would do."

"What did you think I would do, laugh?"

"Alright, I'm sorry."

I looked at him funny, wow Fang was apologizing! "You're acting different."

"If you want I can be silent."

"Nah, I'll enjoy it while it lasts."

"Why are you getting all mushy Max?"

"I am not mushy!"

"And you said that I was acting different."

I rolled my eyes at him and we sat there lost in our own thoughts again.

"OH!" I exclaimed and I jumped up. Fang turned towards me giving me a 'what?' look. "I just remembered something!"

"What?"

"I remember that the voice told me that it would tell me who it is after I save the world!"

"Well who is it?"

"Hold on let me find out."

Voice, voicey come on out. You made me a promise, you better keep it.

_So you really want to know who I am._

Duh!

_Alright fine. But don't freak out. I'm you._

"WHAT!? Have you been taking crazy pills?"

_I knew you wouldn't believe me. I'm you Max… just from the future! Before you interrupt me just let me explain. I'm you in the year 2020. That's why the equipment that I sent you is so high tech. It's from the future. I got a new power where I can send my thoughts into the past. Well I can send things too like that Max Ride card. Our future wasn't pretty… when I found out about my power Jeb and I got together to come up with a plan. He found documents from ITEX in the past and together we came up with a plan. I was to contact you and help you along the way. I remembered the past and corrected it. The future was a sad place, the directors plan worked and more than half the population died. But after I figured out about my power I began to hope again, hope that I could save the world since I didn't while I could._

"I don't believe you. It just doesn't make sense." Fang gave me a funny look but stayed silent.

_It is very confusing, but I am you Max. I'm actually quite proud of myself because I figured out a way too change my voice so it doesn't sound like a woman, or man but blank. I even had to keep my sarcasm in check or you might figure it out._

"Why are you telling me this now?"

_Because you wanted to know. I didn't think you would believe me, I know I barely believe it myself. If I told you earlier you wouldn't follow my instructions and I couldn't risk that. The world was a bad place, but now that you've changed the past, the future has also changed. It's all very confusing and complicated. It has to do with dimensions and things that I myself don't understand, so it's okay that you don't understand. All that matters is that you saved the world._

"Why can Jeb do the voice?"

_It's not important; I can't give all my secrets away. Where's the mystery in that? _

"Wait why did you give me those brain attacks."

_Because I was still trying to get the hang of my power and I had to figure out a way to give you information. Excuse me if I was trying to help you… well me._

"You sound different now. More like me."

_Well since you know who I am I don't have to change my personality. You probably won't hear from me again, but since I'm you I guess I'll always be around._

I suddenly felt strange. Lighter somehow, emptier. "Max?" Fang looked concerned and grabbed my hand pulling me down on the bed so I was facing him. "Did you figure out who the voice is?"

"Me," I mumbled out trying to process everything.

"What?"

"The voice is me in the future apparently, it's confusing and I don't get it, she said… well I said that everything that matters is that I saved the world. I don't get it but I don't think I even want to know.

"So do we end up getting married and living in the suburbs?"

"Fang!" I felt my cheeks warm up and I knew I was blushing.

"Alright, alright. I'm confused but we'll make some sense of it. Well some of the puzzle is figured out already; I guess we'll just figure the rest out later."

"We?"

"We." Fang smiled.

**Okay I couldn't decide who I wanted the voice to be. But then I thought of this and it seemed sort of sci-fi-ish and different. So I wanted something a bit unique. I don't know if I like it myself so I get it if you don't like the idea of that. Oh and it's meant to be unclear and confusing because that's how Max is feeling. I don't really like this chapter… **

**P.S. Some people are asking if I'm going to write a sequel. Well I haven't decided yet. But if you have ideas tell me in a review or PM because I have no ideas. Tell me your thoughts.**

**Thanks for reading!**


	18. Epilogue

Expectations

**Expectations**

**Epilogue**

**Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed. I really hope that you enjoyed this story. This is the last chapter. This is just wrapping stuff up. I'm considering a sequel but I haven't decided yet.**

**Note to TIGER and LILY: Well I'm sorry that you found what I wrote so "HORRIBLE! SICK! PERVERTED! TWISTED AND NOT FAIR! GET RIDE OF IT IMMEDIATELY FOR THE SAKE OF MMY FREAKING SANITY!" I actually had a huge paragraph written out to you, a whole page on Microsoft Word. I was really angry, buy then I went over it and realized that I was a bit rude. All I want to know is what is so bad about it. You didn't really explain, so explain what is soooo absolutely horrendous. I don't mind constructive criticism but there was nothing constructive about that.**

Max POV: (6 months later)

Hey readers! It's Max here. Well you left off with us still on the ship up north. Well we are home now in the states. We have been for a couple months already. We're living the life now. Apparently Jeb worked something out with the government. They kind of owed us since we saved all their lives…

Now we're living happily ever after… sorta.

"Gazzy stop annoying Total!"

"Where is my other shoe?"

"Who moved the cinnamon?"

"You cretan. You aren't fit to lick the mud off my paws!"

"I can't find my shoe! You know the purple one!"

"Someone moved my BOMBS!"

"Where did Total go?"

"Hello do you all want to eat breakfast or what? Who moved the cinnamon?"

"My SHOE!"

Ahhh the drama! Anyways back to what I was saying. Jeb worked it out so we didn't have to go back to that school that they built… thank god. Though we all have to take online classes… but it's better than normal school at least. So we got a house in California on a beach. It's really secluded and no more freezing weather! Yes!

Everyone is pretty content. I've been talking to Jeb lately and he has been trying to help me understand the whole voice thing. It is really complicated but he's been a big help. I still don't trust him completely, I don't know if I ever will. But I'm letting him back into my life, though I'm watching him like a hawk.

My mom and Ella visit us all the time. They don't live too far away and my mom worries about us. It's all pretty good.

"Max do you know where my shoe is?" Nudge ran into the living room where I was channel surfing.

"Nope Nudge, did you try looking under your bed?" I replied. She ran upstairs probably to check under her bed. I felt a prickling at the back of my neck. Without even breaking my pattern of channel surfing I said, "Stop doing that!"

"What breathing?" I heard a low voice say from behind me. I just rolled my eyes and stopped on the Oxygen channel. Ohhh they're playing Pride and Prejudice. Ella made me read the book last time she was here and I've got to say it's really good; for a sappy love story that is.

Fang flopped down next to me on the couch and scrunched his face up at my choice. "You seriously want to watch this?" He grumbled.

"No I stopped on this channel because I don't want to watch this." I retorted.

Fang rolled his eyes but I knew he wasn't offended. He just sat there silent while I watched my movie. We've actually gone pretty much back to normal just with some small changes. Fang is back to being silent and one word answers, but he smiles and laughs much more often now. I'm still sarcastic but not as much as before. Also Fang and I kept to the not being mushy thing… usually.

Every now and then we get a little mushy. I remember once Jeb stayed with us for over a week. So one day Fang asked me if I wanted to go flying. I said sure and that I need to stretch my wings. So I followed him and he flew for about a mile before he landed so I followed. As soon as I had landed Fang was kissing me. I was just sort of stunned. So we sat down on the sand and when I asked him what that was all about he just said that he hadn't been able to do that for a while, so thus he just _had _to kiss me again or he'd die.

See that's what I mean by mushy. Anyways that's enough about us. Iggy and Gasman have been experimenting with bombs and I've been confiscating them, but more and more just pop up. I doubt that will ever change. The other day they blew up a tree. Why? Because they're just dumb like that. They're still grounded… yea I'm still the bossy leader.

"I found my shoe!" Nudge ran in, "Ohh Pride and Prejudice." So she plopped down on the couch too. Angel and Total walked in and Total wanted to watch too, apparently P & P is his favorite movie. Iggy came in with plates full of French toast and Gazzy followed him in too. So the whole family sat around the TV eating.

After we finished the movie Iggy and Fang went to wash the dishes. I took the others outside to play. Gazzy, Nudge and Angel kicked around a soccer ball and I went to the Swings.

Swinging really is sort of like flying. I was off in La La Land with my eyes closed when I felt warm hands on my back. My eyes popped open and I looked behind me to see Fang grinning. I smiled back at him and turned around watching Iggy join the kids in the game. I saw Iggy and Gazzy were against Angel and Nudge. Iggy made a goal on Nudge and he high fived Gazzy.

Nudge and Angel gave each other a look and suddenly Gasman and Iggy fell backwards onto their butts with confused expressions on their faces. Nudge clapped while Angel curtseyed. I started laughing along with Nudge and Angel. Iggy and Gasman ran after the girls and started to tickle them. I was too busy laughing to notice that I wasn't moving anymore and was silent until I felt Fang hug me from behind.

"Everything is pretty good now." Fang mumbled in my ear.

"Perfect," I agreed.

"Fang let go of me to take hold of the chains and spin me around so I was facing him. He leaned forward to kiss me. After about a minute I heard the front door slam shut and my mom and Jeb say, "We're here."

Fang groaned and hit his head lightly with my shoulder.

**Sorry it took me so long to end it. Not my best chapter and I don't think it flows but I like the idea of it if not the actual writing.**

**I hope you liked it. This is cheesy but I found it cute. And I'm a sap for happy endings… so yea.**

**I hope you enjoyed the story. I want to thank everyone who has read and reviewed.**

** Thanks **


End file.
